FIC: The Hollow Men (2/3) (Avengers)
Title:The Hollow Men
Author: lettered
Characters: Bruce Banner+Steve Rogers, or Bruce/Steve. Also includes off-screen Tony.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 26,000
Warnings: issues include ethics in the superhero genre, politics, patriotism, aid in Africa, HIV, homophobia, terrorism, religion, child abuse, brief allusion to suicide. If you think discussion of these things between the two main characters would bother you, I strongly encourage use of your back button.
Disclaimer: Characters aren’t mine. Title and poem belong to Eliot.
Summary: Steve goes to Uganda, ostensibly to fetch Bruce, who still doesn’t want to join the Avengers. Steve tries to figure out how to do the right thing; they both try to find their place in the world.
A/N: Thank you to honeylocusttree for the beta, promptness, and explanations. And I can’t even say how much of this fic is indebted to my_daroga. Thank you for listening, encouraging, reading, vetting, idea-sharing, concept-checking, and putting up with me. I’d say that you are Steve to my Bruce, but . . . I’m way taller than you, among other things. :o)
This comes after A Fine Spur (AO3 | DW | LJ), which is Natasha and Bruce (or Natasha/Bruce), but it doesn’t have to be read in order to get this one.
I am aware of the problematic nature of addressing these issues through the use of fandom and these characters in particular; it's partly why I wrote the fic. If anyone finds anything inaccurate or offensive herein, I would really like to know about it. For more information about aid and/or Uganda, please read the note at the end.
Go to: 1 | 2 | 3
*
The next time Steve visited Bruce’s cottage, he said, “Hello, Doctor Banner,” like he always did, and Bruce said, “Hey,” the way he sometimes did, and Steve said, “How are you?”
“Fine,” Bruce said, to be polite.
“I wanted to talk to you about HIV,” said Steve.
All Bruce wanted to do was mix this saline solution, go to sleep, and never ever dream. Instead he walked back into the rudimentary lab room and said, “I’d rather talk about how your garden grows,” mostly because if it was hard for him to deal with some of the things that Steve didn’t know, then it must be murder on Steve.
Steve stood at the doorway.
Looking up over his glasses, Bruce saw Steve’s face, and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” Bruce said. “It’s . . . what do you want to know?”
“Everything,” said Steve, and sat down at the bench.
Bruce raised his brows. “You’ve been to the clinic. You know about AIDS.”
Steve smiled mirthlessly. “I’m a year, Doctor Banner, not a day.” The smile fell away. Watching as Bruce measured out salt into plastic bottles, he said, “I thought I understood it. There just seem to be-a lot of different ideas about it.”
Bruce started measuring the dextrose. “What do you know?”
“It’s a disease. A bad one. And smoking gives you lung cancer.” Steve gave him a self-deprecating smile. “Sorry. It’s all a mish-mash of information from various sources. Also, cell phones might give you cancer, but it hasn’t been proven yet.”
“Right.” So, at least Steve was asking science questions; that was helpful. Bruce started measuring the water. “HIV is a virus that affects the auto-immune system; it causes AIDS. It’s a sexually transmitted disease. It’s particularly a problem in Africa because . . . well, there are a lot of reasons. But the main one is unprotected sex.”
Steve actually blushed.
Bruce pursed his lips. “Am I embarrassing you?”
“What? No. I knew that much.”
“Good.” Bruce started pouring the water carefully into the bottles. “Embarrassment can be a big part of the problem.”
“I’m listening.” It wasn’t a very deep blush. Just this brush of pink dusting Steve’s cheeks.
So Bruce explained about AIDS, how the disease was transmitted, the common misconceptions about its transference. There were cultural as well as economic reasons that made treatment, prevention and eradication of the disease difficult in sub-Saharan Africa. Scientists theorized that concurrent partnerships could contribute to the problem, as well as the more obvious problems of sanitization and education.
“You mean the natives are promiscuous,” Steve said at last, with a frown.
Bruce grimaced. “Don’t say, ‘the natives’.”
“I didn’t mean-”
“Yeah.” Bruce decided to make the silica gel next. He wouldn’t be able to use it until he got more equipment, but he still planned on setting up a lab. Some time. Eventually. “Preach abstinence and monogamy all you want, it doesn’t mean that people are going to listen. There are three good reasons why fewer people have AIDS in the U.S., and those are, in order of importance, money, education, and condoms.”
“But people do have AIDS in America,” Steve pointed out.
“It happens.” Bruce laid out a cloth, put the silica crystals onto it, another cloth on top of that. Crushing the crystals with a rock, he said, “There are other ways to transmit it.”
“You mean,” Steve said, and the pink was back in his cheeks, “homosexuals.”
Looking at him over his glasses, Bruce couldn’t help the reflexive tightening of his jaw. “No, actually.” He gathered the crushed silica. “I didn’t mean that. I meant needles, and accidental exchange of fluids.”
“I read it in a magazine,” Steve said. “I think. Maybe on the internet.”
Bruce poured the purified water into a jar, then added the sodium hydroxide. Part of the problem was that it wasn’t actually Steve’s fault. He’d lived in the twenty-first century for less than a year, assaulted every day by commercials, blogs, news programs-many of them centered around him-pop music, billboards, webisodes, talk show hosts, Bruce didn’t know, comics. Out of that onslaught of constant information, it had to be difficult to determine what was relevant, much less true. “You don’t get AIDS because you’re gay, Steve,” was all Bruce said.
“But more people are now,” Steve said. “I mean, that one’s hard to miss.” He bowed his head, looking pensive. His voice was quiet when he said, “Why are things so different?”
Bruce fired up the burner, then got the clamps to hold the jar. “It’s probably not as different as you think,” he said. “There’ve always been promiscuity and homosexuality; we just happen to be in an era that’s more open about it.”
“People keep saying that,” said Steve, pink in his cheeks again. “But I didn’t know many people who were like that. The ones who were didn’t seem very . . . nice.”
No, okay, the problem was, Steve Rogers could claim that abstinence was the only answer and that homosexuality was wrong, and many people would believe him. It was because he was Steve Rogers, the hero of the past, whom everyone knew was the American ideal of wholesome goodness; if he said what was right and wrong, it must be true.
And yet people would probably believe him even not knowing who he was; there was something just slightly uncanny about him, a kind of distance that displaced him. It wasn’t just his size, his good looks; there was something pure about him, something so unbroken, as though he were the thing that people believed in when they were young, and later grew to learn could not be true.
And then there was Bruce-who was, let’s face it, as ruined a specimen of humanity as Steve was an ideal-saying things that must sound a lot to Steve like love and God and family don’t matter anymore.
Bruce hooked the gas tube on the Meker burner up to the canister. He knew he probably should be saying something right now, something that would reach past stereotypes and upbringing and into the essential goodness at the heart of Steve’s character. It would be the responsible thing to do in a country where sexual orientation could sometimes result in death.
He held the jar over the flame with the clamps, gradually adding the silica. “I don’t think I’m really the person you should talk to about this kind of thing,” he said finally.
“Who should I talk to? Tony Stark?” Steve laughed a little. “He keeps saying he’s telling me about the real world, but somehow I think he’s really telling me about his own world.”
“There’s that.”
Steve watched for a while as the silica dissolved, and Bruce added more a little at a time. “I thought you agreed to stop telling me I was wrong without telling me what you think is right,” Steve said.
“Are you sure that was me?” Bruce turned the jar on the flame with the clamps. “It doesn’t sound like me. I have this sort of dual nature.” He took the jar off the flame.
“Why do you do that?”
“What?” Bruce stood up, going over to the safe. He took out the bottle of boric acid, brought it over to the table.
“Deflect,” said Steve. “You do it all the time.”
“I’m not the one with the shiny shield.” Bruce put down the acid. “Look, Steve, I’m not trying to be a jerk. It’s just not really my place to tell you that you’re wrong, or that you should feel differently than you do.”
Steve’s mouth went tight. “Stop treating me like a child. I expect it from Mister Stark, but not from you. It’s not telling me how to think when I ask for your opinion.”
Bruce’s hand spasmed around the acid. “Alright, how about this. What if I want to tell you what to think?” He looked at Steve, his whole face gone taut, and wondered why this always happened to him. “What if I want you to believe exactly what I believe, and you, the perfect model of human decency, preach it to the world, and then it turns out-I’ve made you into me. You don’t have to get green and ugly to be a monster, Steve. You just have to have a lot of power and be convinced you’re right.”
Steve just looked at him, his expression mild. “I would say, with all due respect, screw you.”
Bruce looked at him in surprise.
“My body was made, not my mind.” Steve shook his head. “Stop thinking you can make your thoughts reality just by thinking them. I know you’re a virtual tank, but that’s getting just a little out of your league.”
The tension eased from Bruce’s shoulders. He looked away. “Don’t think it didn’t occur to me, when we had Loki’s scepter.”
Steve snorted. “Don’t think it didn’t occur to all of us in one way or another, at some subconscious level. You’re not so special, Doctor Banner. I’ve known plenty of freaks far worse than you.”
“But did they perform naked,” Bruce said, turning back to the acid. He’d forgotten what he was doing with it. Silica gel, right. Cobalt chlorate. Get on that, Banner.
Sometimes he whined so much he annoyed even himself.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Steve was smiling, a corner of his mouth, and Bruce wondered just what kind of mischief Steve had ever got up to as a kid.
He poured the boric acid into the sodium silicate.
“So.” Steve put his elbows on the table. “You going to answer my question, or just sit here and play mad scientist all day?”
“You would know if I was mad.” Bruce looked at him over his glasses. “What question?”
“The evolving social unit that is the American family.” Steve flashed him a grin. “Mister Stark keeps sending me these texts and emails. I think he’s trying to horrify me.”
Bruce pressed his lips together. “Is he succeeding?”
Steve’s smile fell away. He started drumming his hand on the table. “I’m just not sure I see what’s wrong with people caring for and committing to each other before making love.”
“Nothing’s wrong with it.” Bruce mixed the solution, the gel slowly forming, a green blobby mass in the bottom of the jar.
“And what’s wrong with family? If God intended women to be with women and men to be with men-” pink dusted Steve’s cheeks again-“why do women only have babies with men?”
“That’s a rather simplistic view point.” Bruce kept on stirring, then finally poured out the excess liquid.
“So I’ve heard. It just doesn’t seem . . .” Steve waved a hand, as though to encompass all human sexuality in that one small gesture, “natural.”
“I’m not trying to reduce the argument to tautology, here,” Bruce said, rinsing the gel with the saline, “but all of human action is, by definition, natural.”
“I’ve thought about that too.” Steve started drumming on the table again. “Then I think about us.”
“I’m flattered?” Bruce smiled wryly.
“I’m the most unnatural person I’ve ever met.” Steve stopped drumming. “Besides you.”
“I’m sure my sunny disposition makes up for it.” Bruce went on rinsing the gel, then glanced over at Steve. “There’s Tony,” he offered.
Steve shook his head. “Machines were helping people to live before I went to sleep. It was supposed to be the future. And it is weird that Mister Stark has a machine in his chest, but let’s face it. In some ways, you and I, our whole bodies are machines. They’re engineered.”
Bruce wanted to tell Steve that he was the most natural person he’d ever met. He’d never known someone so genuinely kind, not even Betty-someone so completely lacking in pretense. He wanted to tell Steve that there was nothing unnatural about him, but of course it was a lie.
“You wanted my opinion,” Bruce said. Sealing the gel in a container, he opened up the safe again, replaced the chemicals and sensitive equipment. He went to make sure the gas was off, then began to wash the jars and beakers. “Here it is. People have the right to love or have sex with whomever they want. HIV is not a judgment; viruses are just simple evolution-DNA, doing what it does. And you. You are not a disappointment in the eyes of God.”
“Thanks.” Steve smiled ruefully. “Are you just saying that because you don’t actually believe in God?”
Bruce pressed his lips together. “Yes.”
Steve held that smile, a hook at the end of his lips. “I thought maybe you didn’t. I feel like not a lot of people do these days.”
Bruce looked away. “I don’t really believe in anything.”
Steve looked at him a little while, in his thoughtful way, his strong brow clear of any lines, fine jaw generous in regards to his mouth. “I think you do.” He smiled. “Anyway, I believe in you.”
*
Later that week, Bruce wrote out the drugs that Asha needed, and asked Steve if he needed money. Steve looked at him strangely and said, “I thought charity was a quick fix.”
“It is,” said Bruce, not really looking back. “Do you need cash?”
“No,” said Steve in a slow, thoughtful tone that Bruce really didn’t like. “That’s okay.”
“Good,” said Bruce, and gave him a wad of shillings. “Get some syringes while you’re at it. They’re running tight at the clinic, which probably means they’ll start reusing them.”
Steve took the bills. “Anything else, Doctor Banner?”
“No. Yeah.” Bruce scratched the back of his neck. “I want cantaloupe.”
“Cantaloupe.”
“I’ve heard cantaloupe grows great in this climate. No one around here is growing any cantaloupe. I want some cantaloupe.”
The corner of Steve’s mouth turned down even as his brows went up. “You want me to buy this before or after the silver bells and cockle shells?”
“I’m not going to eat those, Steve.”
Steve just looked at him. After a while he said, “Is Asha going to be okay?”
“No.” Bruce turned away. “I think she’s going to die.”
“Then why are you bothering?” said Steve.
“Honestly, I have no clue. Maybe I just feel like it.”
“Like cantaloupe.”
“Exactly like that.”
“Alright, Doctor Banner,” Steve said in that same slow tone.
He went to Kampala and got the drugs for Asha, melon seeds for the garden, and syringes for the clinic. He told Bruce they were fresh out of cantaloupe in Kampala, and Bruce said that he was a dirty rotten liar, and Steve just said Bruce would have to wait for the garden.
Keisha, one of the girls who lived in the village, led the co-op, and they drafted a proposal for the money and tools to start the garden. Steve started digging the plot once the microcredit was approved, in between days of work on the church. The latter was slow-going, due to minor set-backs with runny mortar and crumbling bricks, which necessitated more trips to Kampala. The work was slowed as well by some of the children, who liked to play with the tools. Mainly, they liked to play with Steve.
Steve was a kid magnet. He was like their own personal jungle gym, except he also laughed and joked around and sometimes gave them pretty things that Bruce thought he probably shouldn’t give them, but then he saw Steve with a three year old on his hip and it was sort of hard to argue.
There was something arresting about Steve with children. When they started Asha’s treatment, they were both over at the orphanage a lot. Steve would often play with the children outside-jumping back and forth over strings, chasing them around, teaching them games. Steve wanted to teach the kids baseball; Bruce told him to be patriotic and play soccer.
After the first two afternoon, Steve got the idea to put a chair out on the lawn and bring Asha outside. They brought an umbrella and some of the mosquito netting too, and Steve carried her outside wrapped in a thin, bright yellow blanket.
The thing about Steve was that he didn’t even look like he was being careful; he was a man with the strength of ten, and yet he was perfectly at ease in his own body. He made it look so effortless, and it touched something deep within Bruce that he only seemed that way because he had been built to move with ease and elegance, while mentally, Steve apparently felt graceless. Bruce was used to feeling like he didn’t own his own body. There were so many others who could not be used to it; Steve and Asha were only two of them.
Sometimes after the orphanage, Bruce would go back to the village with Steve. Steve usually had to get to work on the church, while sometimes Bruce went to chat with Esther or had a beer with some of the guys at the bar. Sometimes he talked to Steve while he was working, and more often than he liked to admit, Bruce just watched him. Bruce had to admit that there was something arresting about Steve even without the contrast of the children. Compared to Steve, grown men were small and fragile too.
Steve usually worked in an undershirt and wheeled around more bricks than should have been humanly possible; he demolished the wall of faulty brick with a sledge hammer and then got right back to work. He was the strongest human being in the world in his normal state. It didn’t make a difference where he went; he would always be able to do more than others could, give more than others could, fix the things that others couldn’t. People like Steve held this world in the palms of their superpowered hands, and the fate of everyone in it rested on their sound moral judgment.
Normally, it was something Bruce was pretty concerned about, considering. He was still concerned about it, but while Bruce watched Steve build that church, mostly what he thought about was what that having Steve here was the safest anyone around Bruce had ever been since the experiment. Bruce had it pretty well under control-since New York, since Honduras-but he could not deny that he was also one of those superpowered people, and however sound his moral judgment, he would always be a threat. Having Steve around meant that threat was lessened.
Sometimes Bruce watched him, Steve straining against the wooden beams that would brace the ceiling, and all he could think of was what that if they went somewhere secluded, somewhere far from here-he could finally just . . . let go. Maybe Steve could even take it. Bruce didn’t mean to do it; he didn’t even know that he was doing it-but when Bruce watched Steve, he looked to see how Steve moved, how much he could take, what he could withstand and whether he could get away. The odds were not very promising, but they were better than they ever had been with any unarmed human being. Something about that made Bruce feel strangely settled, as though the beast inside, sensing balance, could curl up and go to sleep.
Steve surely didn’t act like he was there to try to pound some sense into him, should Bruce turn into a colossal raging monster. Sometimes Bruce wondered if the thought even ever crossed Steve’s mind. Whether it did or didn’t, Bruce found that over time, tension was easing from his shoulders. When he got a little anxious he thought about Steve’s arms lifting far too many bricks; when he got upset, he thought about the thickness of Steve’s thighs. He thought about Steve taking hit after hit after hit, just taking it and taking it, then getting up again, ruined and golden, but undefeated. Bruce went to sleep thinking of Steve killing him, and for once, he rested in peace.
*
Once Steve got the garden going, he went to Kampala to get the wood floor and paint for the church. Then he got the idea that the school could use computers, which Bruce struggled to explain to him hardly seemed feasible. The school didn’t have power, and was two kilometers from the village, without anything much around it besides farms and huts. The health center was a little more realistic, especially since it wasn’t far from town, and already had electricity.
Steve decided that if the issue really was about power, then there was really only one person in the world he thought should get involved.
“That really isn’t such a good idea,” said Bruce.
“He isn’t an evil man,” said Steve. “In fact, he can be really keen. I mean, unless he’s near me. Which he’s not.”
“I don’t mean because he’s evil,” said Bruce. Steve was at his cottage again; he’d come over because he had this great idea. Bruce didn’t think it was a great idea at all.
“I understand that it would be charity,” Steve said, “but it’s not a quick fix. Once people have power and electricity and know how to use computers, they can build from there.”
“There isn’t the infrastructure in this area,” was all Bruce said.
“Why can’t we build it?”
“He very well could. The question is whether you should.” Bruce started tapping his pen. He’d been going over some notes from his old research.
Steve frowned. “It would benefit people.”
Bruce started turning the pen end to end in his hand. “You ever think maybe it isn’t your job to benefit people?”
Steve just looked at him. “No?”
Of course. It was a stupid question.
“I think you know what I think,” Bruce said, turning back to the paper in front of him.
“I’m just not always sure why,” said Steve.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Bruce said, then turned to Steve again. “I’m sorry. That was really rude. I didn’t mean to-”
Steve gave him a smile that was a lot more like a grimace. “You sort of did. It’s okay, Doctor Banner.”
“No.” Bruce took off his glasses. “It’s not. I should never have-you’re . . .” He looked at Steve’s open, honest face and didn’t even have words for what he was. “You just wanted my advice. Now you’ve got it, and it’s alright for you to make a different decision.”
Steve’s brows went up. “What if it hurts other people?”
Bruce shook his head. “I can’t make you do anything. You do what you think is right, and I . . . do what I can.”
Steve was sort of smirking now, which was a weird thing to see. “That’s why I come to you for advice.”
Bruce looked away. “I thought it was because I’m a great gardener.”
“No, you’re very contrary,” Steve said. “It’s okay. I like it.”
*
As it turned out, Bruce didn’t have to decide whether to discourage Steve from his plan. Someone else made the decision for him.
“He said, ‘don’t be an idiot,’” said Steve.
“Was that it?” said Bruce.
“No,” said Steve. “He called me Captain Planet.”
“He’s a hero,” said Bruce.
“I printed it out. You can read it.”
There was an internet café in town, which Steve used from time to time to communicate with S.H.I.E.L.D. and whoever else-Bruce wasn’t really sure whether Steve knew anyone, besides S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and the Avengers.
Steve never talked about having any problems with the technology at the café. Obviously, he had had some time to learn the ropes, but it also wasn’t like Steve was stupid. Among other things he was incredibly resourceful, and wasn’t afraid of asking for help. Bruce had thought several times before that Steve’s problem in New York had probably gone much deeper than dealing with the unfamiliar technology.
Bruce looked down at the email. It read:
Captain Planet,
If you think that the problems of Africa can be solved by bumbling about in a unitard saving orphans and instilling impoverished peoples with the values of the American Way, you’re even more of a clueless bumpkin than I thought. And my thoughts on the subject were myriad.
I submit for your consideration, the toilet. Every twenty seconds, a child in the world dies as a result of water-borne illness. Should you:
A) Offer to carry buckets of water from the local stream, just as any gentleman would, and see to it yourself that each bucket is thoroughly sanitized,
B) Build a sewer system for the local village, ensuring that all water sources are properly treated and all sewage management is regulated, spending years of your life and ignoring other villages in the meantime,
C) Pour money and resources into a country and/or continent in the hopes that historically unstable local governments will be able to use said resources with the wisdom and efficiency even our own government lacks, or
D) Completely redesign the toilet and all waste management technology such that A, B, and C become moot points and water-borne illness is eliminated.
You probably picked A, didn’t you. I would have hoped that someone in your remote proximity could have explained all of this to you, but it’s become clear that some people would rather put their genius to waste-to the detriment of choice D) and all of us-rather than study and put to use green energy. In all its various forms.
You, alas, are not a genius, nor an engineer; however, you are not lacking in certain energies of your own. Do you want to solve world problems? I have a list of guerilla leaders, terrorists, drug lords and mobsters you would do well to locate. I don’t care if you skip the trial of their peers for crimes against humanity; simply proceed to eliminate. Once you do that, we’ll have a nice chat, and I’ll buy you the apple pie you would most assuredly deserve, my fellow American.
Tl;dr, you’re not going to bring pollution down to zero. I am.
Yours,
T
Sent from I-civilization
Bruce folded the paper and gave it back to Steve. “It’s too bad he doesn’t take his own advice.”
“What do you mean?” Folding the paper one more time, Steve put it in his back pocket.
Bruce took off his glasses. “Stark Industries pours plenty of money into foreign aid charities.”
“Does he know that?” For the first time ever, Steve’s voice was not quite kind.
Bruce looked down, playing with the ear piece on his glasses, opening and closing it. “Pretty sure he’s the one who sets it up.” He looked back up at Steve. “I’m sure you could get the necessary equipment from elsewhere.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What was the point?” Bruce asked quietly.
Steve’s frown deepened.
“He’s not his father, Steve.”
“I know,” said Steve. “I just don’t want him to be . . .”
“On the helicarrier, you said that he only cared about himself.” Bruce opened and closed the glasses. “Do you still think so?”
“Of course not,” said Steve promptly. His shoulders slumped. “Only sometimes.”
“I think he sees the world very differently from you,” said Bruce. “It doesn’t invalidate either viewpoint.”
“What about you?”
Bruce snapped the glasses shut. “What?”
“I’ve always wondered what you two fought about.”
The glasses were in his fist now-Bruce wasn’t sure how they got there-and he had to think carefully about not squeezing. “We didn’t fight,” he said.
“You were certainly pretty thick. Then you just . . . left.”
Bruce concentrated on not breaking the glasses. They were his only pair. “We weren’t thick. I don’t even really know him.”
“You stayed at Stark Tower five days,” Steve pointed out. “If he wasn’t in your face for even half of that time, you’re luckier than most.”
“I think I’ll go for a walk,” said Bruce. Putting his glasses in his pocket, he grabbed the plastic jugs by the door, and went outside.
Steve didn’t approach him until Bruce was filling the fourth jug, possibly because he was just a nice guy like that. “I’m sorry,” Steve said, as though to prove it. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You didn’t.” Bruce didn’t look at him. “I’m not upset.”
“Of course not.” On anyone else, that tone would have sounded sarcastic, but although Steve sounded amused, he also just sounded kind. Steve said, “Let me help you.” He reached down and picked up two of the jugs.
“We didn’t fight,” Bruce said again. “We just have . . . a fundamental difference of opinions.”
Wearing a crooked smile, Steve arched a brow. “Like he and I?”
“Yes. Exactly like that.” Bruce picked up the jugs.
“It’s just that, I don’t know,” Steve said, as they started walking, “he seemed to have similar opinions to you in that email. I don’t mean you sound like a jerk,” and he was still kind, “I just mean, in essentials.”
“I’m nothing like Tony,” Bruce said, mainly because Tony had said almost exactly what Bruce would say, if only Bruce had believed that the world was simple enough to say it.
They walked back in the cottage, where Bruce got the water purification tablets out from one of the crates, then put them in the jugs. “What about the rest of the email?” Steve said, putting his own jugs on the counter next to the stove.
“What about it?” Bruce said, adding tablets to those jugs too.
“The terrorists and drug lords,” Steve said. “Do you think I should be hunting them down?”
Bruce began setting up the water filter. The filter only got some of the bacteria; the tablets were supposed to take care of the rest. Bruce was pretty sure that his body would have done it all for him; at this point, all his gut flora had probably long since died from radiation. It was the radiation itself that was keeping him alive. He still liked to be careful-besides, sometimes he had guests. “I don’t know,” was all he said.
“Why not?” Steve said. “Mister Stark seemed to think it was pretty clear cut.”
Steve leaned up against the wall by the door. He was mostly in shadow there, at that angle, the strong broad lines of him a little gray and a lot less certain. Bruce went back to setting up the filter, pouring the water in. “The world would probably thank you for assassinating several people I can think of,” Bruce said. “It just makes me wonder what comes next.”
“Al-Qaeda,” said Steve.
“Among other things.” Bruce poured the water.
“Such as?”
“What about foreign dictators? Would you have killed Saddam Hussein? Are you going to kill Kim Jong-un? What are you going to do about the next coup in Central America? Human rights violations in the Middle East?” Bruce uncapped the next jug. “What if you just don’t like someone’s face?”
“I have a really good retort for that,” said Steve. “It’s biting and sarcastic and about Tony Stark, but it doesn’t seem appropriate.”
Bruce glanced at him. Steve’s face was turned in this direction, but he wasn’t quite looking at Bruce, as though fascinated instead by the pouring of the water. He wasn’t smiling at all. “What do you think?” Bruce said.
“What?” Startled, Steve managed to pull his eyes away from Bruce’s hands long enough to meet his eyes.
“You’re always asking me what I think,” said Bruce. “What do you think? That’s the only thing that matters, when it comes to what you do.”
“I don’t know,” Steve said, something in his voice-maybe chagrin. He smiled a little, ran his hand through his hair and then kept it there, resting on his neck, looking down at the ground. The line of his lips was troubled.
Bruce took the water coming out from under the filter and poured it into another bottle. Time for more saline solution-the clinic could use it anyway, even if he didn’t.
“Why don’t you like people to touch you?” Steve asked.
Bruce poured the salt in. He closed the bottle, shook it, didn’t turn around. “Giant beast of wrath. I think that covers it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Steve. “That’s personal. I shouldn’t have asked. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Bruce took out another bottle before that salt was really mixed, checked the water in the filter, which wasn’t finished either, measured out another percentage of salt, poured more water in the filter, checked it again. He still didn’t turn around.
Steve didn’t leave while Bruce pretended that he had very important things to do; maybe Bruce should have actually gone on that walk, or told Steve to leave, or told Steve why he didn’t much like touching, or showed Steve why he didn’t much like touching, which was why Bruce just kept standing there, not looking, not doing anything except keeping his hands busy.
Steve didn’t leave. As far as Bruce could tell, he had barely moved.
“I thought a lot about what you said,” Steve said, after that long, excruciating silence. “About the government. I’ve read about Vietnam. Korea, Iraq.”
When Bruce glanced back, Steve still had his hand on the back of his neck. He was still watching the bottles and beakers, salt and Bruce’s hands, but Bruce’s guess was he wasn’t really seeing them.
“I read about Hiroshima, too,” said Steve. “Nagasaki. If you were Phase Two, was I Phase Zero? I look at what we’ve done, about all the scientists who had to engineer me, and then I start thinking maybe I’m just another Manhattan Project after all.”
“You have a mind,” said Bruce.
Steve smiled gratefully, a not quite pleasant twist of his lips. “Mister Stark doesn’t think so. He thinks I’m good for exactly one thing.”
“He didn’t mean it like that,” Bruce said, immediately and without forethought.
Steve’s lips twisted further. “Are you defending me, or him?”
Bruce turned back to the counter.
“Let’s face it, Doctor Banner. If the people who built me had intended for me to solve the world’s problems with my brain, they wouldn’t have left that the same and changed all the rest. They intended me to use a fist.”
“I meant that you can decide where to use it,” said Bruce.
“Can I?”
“Yes.” Bruce didn’t intend his voice to be so rough. His fist curled on the counter. “You do get to decide. You should keep in mind that some weapons don’t.”
“Doctor Banner.” Steve stepped closer.
“It’s fine.” Putting the traitor fist in his pocket, Bruce turned around. “Really, it’s fine. I didn’t mean to imply that it’s an easy decision for you to make. It isn’t. It shouldn’t be.”
“Mister Stark seems to think it is.”
Bruce put his other hand in his pocket too. “You want to know what’s wrong with Tony Stark?”
The corner of Steve’s mouth twitched up. “I could probably name plenty of things.”
“In your day, a good fight was legit. These days, war-not so universally approved. What we really want is an incisive, directed strike eliminating completely anyone or anything that stands in the way of the pursuit of happiness. We want the defense of democracy at the lowest threshold of bloodshed, but we will sacrifice anything from privacy to simple decency to make that strike.” Bruce kept his hands in his pockets. “So we made Tony Stark. He’s the American dream, you know.”
“And the sacrifice?” said Steve.
Bruce pursed his lips. “I’ve never been able to decide. Every single thing Tony’s ever done with that suit has been completely legitimized by the outcome.”
“What do you mean?”
Bruce looked up at him. “I mean that I don’t have a clue, when it comes to right and wrong.”
Tilting his head, Steve said, “I think you do.”
“I appreciate that. But sometimes I think not claiming to know the right answer is the only moral choice that you can make.”
Steve frowned. “Then what’s the point of making any choice at all?”
“That’s the problem,” said Bruce. “I don’t know if there is a point.”
*
Though Steve didn’t seem particularly angry at Tony, he didn’t seem particularly pleased, either. Over the next few weeks he seemed restless, going over the plans to get the computers into the clinic and rejecting them-probably thinking too much about what Tony had said, and second guessing himself. Bruce thought that Steve was not going to be able to justify his presence here much longer, and felt vindicated the day that Steve kidnapped him.
Steve had driven up in a jeep, which had brought Bruce outside. Automobiles in this immediate vicinity were relatively rare, but Steve didn’t explain. He said hello and how are you, and they went into the cottage. Bruce went back to calibrating the microscope he’d recently gotten from Kampala, while Steve easily lifted the crate that held Bruce’s clothes and most of his worldly possessions with one hand.
“Um, okay.” Bruce tinkered with the microscope some more. “So, that’s stealing.”
Steve walked out with the crate, and then came back.
Finally, it dawned on Bruce, and a sick feeling began somewhere low down in his stomach. “Are we going somewhere?” he asked, very calmly, and took the slide out from under the clips.
Steve smiled-not very innocently, for all that he was Captain America. “Why, are you busy?”
“Depends on where we’re going.”
A wrinkle appeared between Steve’s brows. “You’re not wearing a shirt,” he said, as though he had just noticed.
“They’re drying,” said Bruce. He only had the two. “Outside. Did you want to steal those too?”
“Yes.” Steve just kept looking at him, head slightly tilted. “You just don’t look very scientist-like right now.”
Bruce was starting to get impatient. “They only want me for my gamma expertise? Are you going to feed me that line-seriously? Again?”
“What?” Steve seemed distracted. Maybe he was feeling remorse about being a dirty rotten traitor. “No.”
“It sure was a long game you played.” It probably wasn’t a good idea to handle glass objects right now. The sick feeling had spread up to Bruce’s chest and was slowly squeezing, and who knew what would happen if he broke the slide and nicked himself. He carefully put the slide back in its box.
“What are you looking at?” Steve came up to the bench, as though by looking at the slides he could tell what they were.
“Blood,” said Bruce.
“Is it yours?”
“Some of it.”
Idly, Steve touched the box that held the slides, carefully keeping his fingers from the slides themselves. “Can I look at it some time?”
“Why?”
Steve shrugged. “I want to see how your blood is different than mine.”
The feeling in Bruce’s chest eased. “You’re not taking me to S.H.I.E.L.D.”
“What?” Abruptly, Steve focused. “Wait, do you really think I would?”
“No.” Bruce took off his glasses. “I thought that. For a minute or two. I’m sorry. You just came in here, and you-” Steve’s brows puckered, and Bruce made a pointless gesture with his hand. “I’m sorry.”
Steve looked at him a little while, then a smile started playing at the corner of his mouth. It was a fond smile, the kind he used when looking at children or girls in pretty dresses or homes with happy people inside of them, and it made Bruce very uncomfortable that that kind of smile was directed at him. “I think you should come with me,” Steve said. “Just for a while. Two or three days, tops.”
For a moment, Bruce didn’t move. “Okay,” he said, which he guessed meant that he trusted Steve implicitly. In his experience, that had never been a good idea.
Then again, he never used to know Steve Rogers.
*
Bruce got his shirts off the line and put one of them on. They got in the jeep, and Steve drove northwest. As far as Bruce knew, there wasn’t much in that direction besides grass, plantations, and then more grass. Wild boar, elephants, maybe, but certainly not that much that Bruce would have come out here to see.
“Is there any point to asking where we’re going?”
Steve grinned his crooked grin. “Nope.”
“Thief and kidnapper,” Bruce murmured, and slouched in the seat. He supposed if he was going to be kidnapped, this was the best of all possible ways-out here in the open, where if he went crazy, little more than the jeep and some trees and maybe Steve would be utterly destroyed. There wasn’t much to drive him crazy, except not having anything to do with his hands.
“You should take up knitting,” Steve said at one point.
“That sounds more like you than me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think you’re swell,” said Bruce. “Wake me up when we get there.”
Bruce didn’t actually go to sleep, but he opened his eyes when Steve stopped the jeep. “Are we there yet?”
“Doctor Banner.” Steve’s voice was hushed and low.
Bruce thought he should probably tell Steve to call him Bruce, but he knew he wasn’t ever going to. He’d have liked to think it was something very dramatic, such as not letting people get too close to him, but in all likelihood, it was probably just that he wanted to see how long Steve would go on calling him Doctor Banner. Probably forever, which Bruce found amusing, because he was kind of a dick.
Steve’s hand had clamped down on Bruce’s shoulder. Not saying anything, Steve slowly stood up in the jeep, hand tight on Bruce, as though for reassurance and leverage both. He was looking into the distance, so Bruce looked too.
There were elephants after all. Lots of them. Of course, because African elephants were a perfectly American past time.
Bruce should have felt bad for thinking that, but Steve had this look of rather naked wonder on his face, and Bruce concluded that you didn’t have to be American to be moved by huge, awesome beasts. If Bruce wasn’t a huge, awesome beast himself, he’d probably be moved too. Instead, he was a jaded sonuvabitch.
Steve was getting out of the jeep, but he was doing it the hard way, climbing over the back and their stuff, then over the door. He did so silently, as though afraid to make a sound-as though getting out on his own side would be farther away from the elephants and so unbearable. Bruce found that he sort of missed the pressure of his hand.
There must have been at least thirty elephants, heading their way, but at a leisurely pace. There were baby elephants and old ones, the old ones on the perimeter while the babies stayed in the middle. They really were amazing creatures, Bruce guessed, and then mostly looked at Steve, who stared at them with rapt attention.
Steve mostly wore blue jeans. Bruce found that a little odd; Steve was a lot more Jimmy Stewart than James Dean; he was early 1940s, not 1950s, even if he did drive a motorcycle. Bruce guessed that Steve had just looked around New York and tried to find out how to be quintessentially American. He probably ate a lot of McDonald’s, too, and that was after his time.
The jeans were low slung on Steve’s hips, and Bruce was just impressed that he wasn’t wearing a little khaki shirt with matching shorts, if he was going to take him on safari. Because that’s what this was. Captain America was taking him on safari.
“I did get us hats,” Steve said, when Bruce pointed this out.
“Hats,” Bruce said.
“Yup.” Steve just kept smiling. The elephants had at last passed them by-not a quarter mile from the jeep, which they didn’t seem to care about-and Steve was driving again. “It’s alright if you’re too self-conscious to wear it. I know you’re really shy.”
Bruce snorted. “Did you really?”
Steve looked at him innocently. “Did you want a hat, Doctor Banner? I can get you a hat.”
“Yes,” said Bruce. “I want a hat. I want a hat for my safari, and I want those little shorts.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Steve said. “Who said anything about a safari?”
“Just so you know,” Bruce slumped in his seat again, and closed his eyes, “I’m not hunting anything.”
Steve was quiet for a moment. “Not even lions?”
“No,” said Bruce. “I don’t hunt anything below me on the food chain.”
“What if I find you a rhinoceros?” Steve rested the tips of his fingers on the bottom of the steering wheel and his other arm on the driver’s side door. It was not at all the ten-and-two steering you were taught in school. Rogers was such a rebel. “Doctor Banner,” he said earnestly, “I really, really want to see you fight a rhino. Please? For me.”
“Find me a T-rex,” said Bruce. “Then we’ll talk.”
“Back in my day we fought mastodons and called it good.”
“Wow,” said Bruce. “You’re older than I thought. Why are you stopping again?” Steve nodded in the distance, and Bruce looked in that direction. “A lake. It’s very pretty.”
“If you were a man at all, you would wrestle these hippos with me.” Steve got out of the car, and started walking.
When he kept walking, Bruce got out of the car too. “I’ve heard that hippos are very territorial,” he called out.
“Then it’ll be exciting, won’t it?”
Bruce kind of sort of started jogging. When he caught up, Steve said, “You’re worried about me. That’s so sweet.”
“I said I wasn’t fighting any animals.”
Steve laughed. He laughed and laughed, and Bruce guessed it was okay that they were on safari. The hippos were actually pretty neat. “Trust me,” Steve said, “watching the Hulk fight wild African animals is at the very end of my to-do list.” He smiled at Bruce. “But it’s nice to know you’re looking out for me.”
They watched the hippos from a distance. They sort of looked like huge, lumbering boulders, with birds atop them picking off invisible mites. From time to time, they would splash about, looking both clumsy and strangely graceful, and for a moment now and then, Bruce felt this odd flash of . . . discomfort, maybe, thinking about his own size. At the same time, he couldn’t help but admire them, all that flesh and mass and muscle; they were strong and elegant in their own way, just another of Earth’s miracles. It made him wonder how he looked, when he-
But of course, Bruce had seen footage. Only a little, because there were usually so many things exploding when he was Hulk that it was difficult to get a straight shot, but Bruce had seen enough to make himself lose his lunch more than once. God, it was awful, but then he looked at the hippos, and thought: comparing yourself to a hippo. Come on and admit it, Banner. That’s funny.
“I wish you were young enough to have seen Fantasia,” said Bruce.
“I’ve seen Fantasia,” said Steve.
“Really?”
“It was only a few years-I mean,” Steve said quickly, “it was in 1940.”
Bruce watched the hippos. “I liked ‘Rite of Spring’ best.”
“That’s unexpected.”
Bruce grimaced. “Maybe ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ was a little too close to home.”
“I would have thought ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ would have been a little too close to home.”
Startled, Bruce looked up at him, because ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ was about pretty much the most epic of all demon rage monsters. Even if Bruce thought of himself that way, somewhere along the line he’d started thinking that maybe Steve didn’t.
Steve gave him a crooked grin.
“I can’t believe you said that to me,” said Bruce.
“It’s not my fault everything is always about you,” said Steve.
“At least I’m not the stupid centaur song no one even remembers.”
“Neither am I.” Steve lifted his chin, looking so noble and genuine that Bruce started trying to come up with more American icons, until Steve came up with one for him. “I’m Mickey.”
*
They stayed the night at a tourist lodge, and were driving again by the next morning. Occasionally there were people on the road-boys on bicycles, women carrying baskets.
“We’re going to Murchison Falls,” Bruce said, a little later in the day.
“You got me,” said Steve. “But I was also hoping for giraffes.”
“I won’t fight those either.” Bruce watched the savannah pass them by. “This reminds me of David Livingstone.”
Steve flashed a grin at him. “I thought of that.” He was often fairly good-natured about the references he did and didn’t get, but of course it made sense that he got this one. Livingstone had explored Africa in the Victorian Era. “I mean, he was a scientist.” The smile turned rueful. “Sorry. I was never really into any science, except for science fiction. I always thought Doctor Livingstone seemed keen, though.”
Of course Doctor Livingstone had seemed keen. He’d been a thorough Protestant, started out as a factory worker and pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He had spoken out forcefully against slavery, though he had still used slaves and slave traders in his expeditions. He had been wrong about the source of the Nile, but he had made several geographical discoveries.
Bruce was sort of talking about him without really realizing it when Steve said, “I guess other people already knew about those, though. I mean, the people already living here.”
“True.” Bruce drummed his hands on his thighs some more. “But he opened up the way for other missionaries to come to Africa, and however you feel about that, they did help some with health care.”
“I suppose.”
“And now that I think about it,” Bruce went on drumming, “we’re sitting pretty much in the middle of the Great Rift Valley. Mary Leakey made some pretty famous discoveries not far from here.”
Steve didn’t know who Mary Leakey was, so Bruce told him about her, Louis Leakey, Richard Leakey, the Laotoli footprints and Austrolopithicus bosei. Then he realized that Steve had completely missed Lucy, Donald Johanson’s famous discovery, and he was explaining something about upright hominids and skull cases, when it occurred to him that Steve probably didn’t believe in evolution.
“That’s okay,” said Steve. “I think it’s interesting.”
Bruce thought about Adam and Eve again. He guessed Steve made him think about it sort of a lot.
“You can believe what you want to, Doctor Banner,” Steve said, and Bruce couldn’t stop himself from saying:
“It’s not a belief, though. It’s-” He stopped. The problem was, if Steve was Adam or Eve, what did that make Bruce?
Steve glanced away from the road to look at him. “You do have a rather extended vocabulary.”
Bruce’s fingers ran over the other fist, the way they sometimes did. “I get carried away.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Bruce thought that if there was nothing wrong with that, then his life would probably be a whole lot easier.
Steve glanced at him again. “Misses Leakey sounds like an interesting lady,” he said, in an encouraging way.
“She was.”
“You sound like you sort of had a crush on her.”
Bruce gave him a wry smile. “I was always more of a Marie Curie kind of guy.”
“Of course you were.” Steve grinned. “Come on. Tell me about radioactivity.”
“You should learn Luganda first,” said Bruce. “Chemistry and physics after.”
Steve laughed. “I said, it’s okay. Come on and talk.”
Bruce frowned. “Why didn’t you just bring an audio book?”
“Because I didn’t know they made those.” Steve glanced over at him. “And I like it when you’re having a good time.”
The problem about going on safari with Steve Rogers was that he was quite kind, and very genuine, and he was from 1943, so he didn’t see anything at all gay about it.
*
Go to: part 3
Author: lettered
Characters: Bruce Banner+Steve Rogers, or Bruce/Steve. Also includes off-screen Tony.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 26,000
Warnings: issues include ethics in the superhero genre, politics, patriotism, aid in Africa, HIV, homophobia, terrorism, religion, child abuse, brief allusion to suicide. If you think discussion of these things between the two main characters would bother you, I strongly encourage use of your back button.
Disclaimer: Characters aren’t mine. Title and poem belong to Eliot.
Summary: Steve goes to Uganda, ostensibly to fetch Bruce, who still doesn’t want to join the Avengers. Steve tries to figure out how to do the right thing; they both try to find their place in the world.
A/N: Thank you to honeylocusttree for the beta, promptness, and explanations. And I can’t even say how much of this fic is indebted to my_daroga. Thank you for listening, encouraging, reading, vetting, idea-sharing, concept-checking, and putting up with me. I’d say that you are Steve to my Bruce, but . . . I’m way taller than you, among other things. :o)
This comes after A Fine Spur (AO3 | DW | LJ), which is Natasha and Bruce (or Natasha/Bruce), but it doesn’t have to be read in order to get this one.
I am aware of the problematic nature of addressing these issues through the use of fandom and these characters in particular; it's partly why I wrote the fic. If anyone finds anything inaccurate or offensive herein, I would really like to know about it. For more information about aid and/or Uganda, please read the note at the end.
Go to: 1 | 2 | 3
*
The next time Steve visited Bruce’s cottage, he said, “Hello, Doctor Banner,” like he always did, and Bruce said, “Hey,” the way he sometimes did, and Steve said, “How are you?”
“Fine,” Bruce said, to be polite.
“I wanted to talk to you about HIV,” said Steve.
All Bruce wanted to do was mix this saline solution, go to sleep, and never ever dream. Instead he walked back into the rudimentary lab room and said, “I’d rather talk about how your garden grows,” mostly because if it was hard for him to deal with some of the things that Steve didn’t know, then it must be murder on Steve.
Steve stood at the doorway.
Looking up over his glasses, Bruce saw Steve’s face, and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” Bruce said. “It’s . . . what do you want to know?”
“Everything,” said Steve, and sat down at the bench.
Bruce raised his brows. “You’ve been to the clinic. You know about AIDS.”
Steve smiled mirthlessly. “I’m a year, Doctor Banner, not a day.” The smile fell away. Watching as Bruce measured out salt into plastic bottles, he said, “I thought I understood it. There just seem to be-a lot of different ideas about it.”
Bruce started measuring the dextrose. “What do you know?”
“It’s a disease. A bad one. And smoking gives you lung cancer.” Steve gave him a self-deprecating smile. “Sorry. It’s all a mish-mash of information from various sources. Also, cell phones might give you cancer, but it hasn’t been proven yet.”
“Right.” So, at least Steve was asking science questions; that was helpful. Bruce started measuring the water. “HIV is a virus that affects the auto-immune system; it causes AIDS. It’s a sexually transmitted disease. It’s particularly a problem in Africa because . . . well, there are a lot of reasons. But the main one is unprotected sex.”
Steve actually blushed.
Bruce pursed his lips. “Am I embarrassing you?”
“What? No. I knew that much.”
“Good.” Bruce started pouring the water carefully into the bottles. “Embarrassment can be a big part of the problem.”
“I’m listening.” It wasn’t a very deep blush. Just this brush of pink dusting Steve’s cheeks.
So Bruce explained about AIDS, how the disease was transmitted, the common misconceptions about its transference. There were cultural as well as economic reasons that made treatment, prevention and eradication of the disease difficult in sub-Saharan Africa. Scientists theorized that concurrent partnerships could contribute to the problem, as well as the more obvious problems of sanitization and education.
“You mean the natives are promiscuous,” Steve said at last, with a frown.
Bruce grimaced. “Don’t say, ‘the natives’.”
“I didn’t mean-”
“Yeah.” Bruce decided to make the silica gel next. He wouldn’t be able to use it until he got more equipment, but he still planned on setting up a lab. Some time. Eventually. “Preach abstinence and monogamy all you want, it doesn’t mean that people are going to listen. There are three good reasons why fewer people have AIDS in the U.S., and those are, in order of importance, money, education, and condoms.”
“But people do have AIDS in America,” Steve pointed out.
“It happens.” Bruce laid out a cloth, put the silica crystals onto it, another cloth on top of that. Crushing the crystals with a rock, he said, “There are other ways to transmit it.”
“You mean,” Steve said, and the pink was back in his cheeks, “homosexuals.”
Looking at him over his glasses, Bruce couldn’t help the reflexive tightening of his jaw. “No, actually.” He gathered the crushed silica. “I didn’t mean that. I meant needles, and accidental exchange of fluids.”
“I read it in a magazine,” Steve said. “I think. Maybe on the internet.”
Bruce poured the purified water into a jar, then added the sodium hydroxide. Part of the problem was that it wasn’t actually Steve’s fault. He’d lived in the twenty-first century for less than a year, assaulted every day by commercials, blogs, news programs-many of them centered around him-pop music, billboards, webisodes, talk show hosts, Bruce didn’t know, comics. Out of that onslaught of constant information, it had to be difficult to determine what was relevant, much less true. “You don’t get AIDS because you’re gay, Steve,” was all Bruce said.
“But more people are now,” Steve said. “I mean, that one’s hard to miss.” He bowed his head, looking pensive. His voice was quiet when he said, “Why are things so different?”
Bruce fired up the burner, then got the clamps to hold the jar. “It’s probably not as different as you think,” he said. “There’ve always been promiscuity and homosexuality; we just happen to be in an era that’s more open about it.”
“People keep saying that,” said Steve, pink in his cheeks again. “But I didn’t know many people who were like that. The ones who were didn’t seem very . . . nice.”
No, okay, the problem was, Steve Rogers could claim that abstinence was the only answer and that homosexuality was wrong, and many people would believe him. It was because he was Steve Rogers, the hero of the past, whom everyone knew was the American ideal of wholesome goodness; if he said what was right and wrong, it must be true.
And yet people would probably believe him even not knowing who he was; there was something just slightly uncanny about him, a kind of distance that displaced him. It wasn’t just his size, his good looks; there was something pure about him, something so unbroken, as though he were the thing that people believed in when they were young, and later grew to learn could not be true.
And then there was Bruce-who was, let’s face it, as ruined a specimen of humanity as Steve was an ideal-saying things that must sound a lot to Steve like love and God and family don’t matter anymore.
Bruce hooked the gas tube on the Meker burner up to the canister. He knew he probably should be saying something right now, something that would reach past stereotypes and upbringing and into the essential goodness at the heart of Steve’s character. It would be the responsible thing to do in a country where sexual orientation could sometimes result in death.
He held the jar over the flame with the clamps, gradually adding the silica. “I don’t think I’m really the person you should talk to about this kind of thing,” he said finally.
“Who should I talk to? Tony Stark?” Steve laughed a little. “He keeps saying he’s telling me about the real world, but somehow I think he’s really telling me about his own world.”
“There’s that.”
Steve watched for a while as the silica dissolved, and Bruce added more a little at a time. “I thought you agreed to stop telling me I was wrong without telling me what you think is right,” Steve said.
“Are you sure that was me?” Bruce turned the jar on the flame with the clamps. “It doesn’t sound like me. I have this sort of dual nature.” He took the jar off the flame.
“Why do you do that?”
“What?” Bruce stood up, going over to the safe. He took out the bottle of boric acid, brought it over to the table.
“Deflect,” said Steve. “You do it all the time.”
“I’m not the one with the shiny shield.” Bruce put down the acid. “Look, Steve, I’m not trying to be a jerk. It’s just not really my place to tell you that you’re wrong, or that you should feel differently than you do.”
Steve’s mouth went tight. “Stop treating me like a child. I expect it from Mister Stark, but not from you. It’s not telling me how to think when I ask for your opinion.”
Bruce’s hand spasmed around the acid. “Alright, how about this. What if I want to tell you what to think?” He looked at Steve, his whole face gone taut, and wondered why this always happened to him. “What if I want you to believe exactly what I believe, and you, the perfect model of human decency, preach it to the world, and then it turns out-I’ve made you into me. You don’t have to get green and ugly to be a monster, Steve. You just have to have a lot of power and be convinced you’re right.”
Steve just looked at him, his expression mild. “I would say, with all due respect, screw you.”
Bruce looked at him in surprise.
“My body was made, not my mind.” Steve shook his head. “Stop thinking you can make your thoughts reality just by thinking them. I know you’re a virtual tank, but that’s getting just a little out of your league.”
The tension eased from Bruce’s shoulders. He looked away. “Don’t think it didn’t occur to me, when we had Loki’s scepter.”
Steve snorted. “Don’t think it didn’t occur to all of us in one way or another, at some subconscious level. You’re not so special, Doctor Banner. I’ve known plenty of freaks far worse than you.”
“But did they perform naked,” Bruce said, turning back to the acid. He’d forgotten what he was doing with it. Silica gel, right. Cobalt chlorate. Get on that, Banner.
Sometimes he whined so much he annoyed even himself.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Steve was smiling, a corner of his mouth, and Bruce wondered just what kind of mischief Steve had ever got up to as a kid.
He poured the boric acid into the sodium silicate.
“So.” Steve put his elbows on the table. “You going to answer my question, or just sit here and play mad scientist all day?”
“You would know if I was mad.” Bruce looked at him over his glasses. “What question?”
“The evolving social unit that is the American family.” Steve flashed him a grin. “Mister Stark keeps sending me these texts and emails. I think he’s trying to horrify me.”
Bruce pressed his lips together. “Is he succeeding?”
Steve’s smile fell away. He started drumming his hand on the table. “I’m just not sure I see what’s wrong with people caring for and committing to each other before making love.”
“Nothing’s wrong with it.” Bruce mixed the solution, the gel slowly forming, a green blobby mass in the bottom of the jar.
“And what’s wrong with family? If God intended women to be with women and men to be with men-” pink dusted Steve’s cheeks again-“why do women only have babies with men?”
“That’s a rather simplistic view point.” Bruce kept on stirring, then finally poured out the excess liquid.
“So I’ve heard. It just doesn’t seem . . .” Steve waved a hand, as though to encompass all human sexuality in that one small gesture, “natural.”
“I’m not trying to reduce the argument to tautology, here,” Bruce said, rinsing the gel with the saline, “but all of human action is, by definition, natural.”
“I’ve thought about that too.” Steve started drumming on the table again. “Then I think about us.”
“I’m flattered?” Bruce smiled wryly.
“I’m the most unnatural person I’ve ever met.” Steve stopped drumming. “Besides you.”
“I’m sure my sunny disposition makes up for it.” Bruce went on rinsing the gel, then glanced over at Steve. “There’s Tony,” he offered.
Steve shook his head. “Machines were helping people to live before I went to sleep. It was supposed to be the future. And it is weird that Mister Stark has a machine in his chest, but let’s face it. In some ways, you and I, our whole bodies are machines. They’re engineered.”
Bruce wanted to tell Steve that he was the most natural person he’d ever met. He’d never known someone so genuinely kind, not even Betty-someone so completely lacking in pretense. He wanted to tell Steve that there was nothing unnatural about him, but of course it was a lie.
“You wanted my opinion,” Bruce said. Sealing the gel in a container, he opened up the safe again, replaced the chemicals and sensitive equipment. He went to make sure the gas was off, then began to wash the jars and beakers. “Here it is. People have the right to love or have sex with whomever they want. HIV is not a judgment; viruses are just simple evolution-DNA, doing what it does. And you. You are not a disappointment in the eyes of God.”
“Thanks.” Steve smiled ruefully. “Are you just saying that because you don’t actually believe in God?”
Bruce pressed his lips together. “Yes.”
Steve held that smile, a hook at the end of his lips. “I thought maybe you didn’t. I feel like not a lot of people do these days.”
Bruce looked away. “I don’t really believe in anything.”
Steve looked at him a little while, in his thoughtful way, his strong brow clear of any lines, fine jaw generous in regards to his mouth. “I think you do.” He smiled. “Anyway, I believe in you.”
*
Later that week, Bruce wrote out the drugs that Asha needed, and asked Steve if he needed money. Steve looked at him strangely and said, “I thought charity was a quick fix.”
“It is,” said Bruce, not really looking back. “Do you need cash?”
“No,” said Steve in a slow, thoughtful tone that Bruce really didn’t like. “That’s okay.”
“Good,” said Bruce, and gave him a wad of shillings. “Get some syringes while you’re at it. They’re running tight at the clinic, which probably means they’ll start reusing them.”
Steve took the bills. “Anything else, Doctor Banner?”
“No. Yeah.” Bruce scratched the back of his neck. “I want cantaloupe.”
“Cantaloupe.”
“I’ve heard cantaloupe grows great in this climate. No one around here is growing any cantaloupe. I want some cantaloupe.”
The corner of Steve’s mouth turned down even as his brows went up. “You want me to buy this before or after the silver bells and cockle shells?”
“I’m not going to eat those, Steve.”
Steve just looked at him. After a while he said, “Is Asha going to be okay?”
“No.” Bruce turned away. “I think she’s going to die.”
“Then why are you bothering?” said Steve.
“Honestly, I have no clue. Maybe I just feel like it.”
“Like cantaloupe.”
“Exactly like that.”
“Alright, Doctor Banner,” Steve said in that same slow tone.
He went to Kampala and got the drugs for Asha, melon seeds for the garden, and syringes for the clinic. He told Bruce they were fresh out of cantaloupe in Kampala, and Bruce said that he was a dirty rotten liar, and Steve just said Bruce would have to wait for the garden.
Keisha, one of the girls who lived in the village, led the co-op, and they drafted a proposal for the money and tools to start the garden. Steve started digging the plot once the microcredit was approved, in between days of work on the church. The latter was slow-going, due to minor set-backs with runny mortar and crumbling bricks, which necessitated more trips to Kampala. The work was slowed as well by some of the children, who liked to play with the tools. Mainly, they liked to play with Steve.
Steve was a kid magnet. He was like their own personal jungle gym, except he also laughed and joked around and sometimes gave them pretty things that Bruce thought he probably shouldn’t give them, but then he saw Steve with a three year old on his hip and it was sort of hard to argue.
There was something arresting about Steve with children. When they started Asha’s treatment, they were both over at the orphanage a lot. Steve would often play with the children outside-jumping back and forth over strings, chasing them around, teaching them games. Steve wanted to teach the kids baseball; Bruce told him to be patriotic and play soccer.
After the first two afternoon, Steve got the idea to put a chair out on the lawn and bring Asha outside. They brought an umbrella and some of the mosquito netting too, and Steve carried her outside wrapped in a thin, bright yellow blanket.
The thing about Steve was that he didn’t even look like he was being careful; he was a man with the strength of ten, and yet he was perfectly at ease in his own body. He made it look so effortless, and it touched something deep within Bruce that he only seemed that way because he had been built to move with ease and elegance, while mentally, Steve apparently felt graceless. Bruce was used to feeling like he didn’t own his own body. There were so many others who could not be used to it; Steve and Asha were only two of them.
Sometimes after the orphanage, Bruce would go back to the village with Steve. Steve usually had to get to work on the church, while sometimes Bruce went to chat with Esther or had a beer with some of the guys at the bar. Sometimes he talked to Steve while he was working, and more often than he liked to admit, Bruce just watched him. Bruce had to admit that there was something arresting about Steve even without the contrast of the children. Compared to Steve, grown men were small and fragile too.
Steve usually worked in an undershirt and wheeled around more bricks than should have been humanly possible; he demolished the wall of faulty brick with a sledge hammer and then got right back to work. He was the strongest human being in the world in his normal state. It didn’t make a difference where he went; he would always be able to do more than others could, give more than others could, fix the things that others couldn’t. People like Steve held this world in the palms of their superpowered hands, and the fate of everyone in it rested on their sound moral judgment.
Normally, it was something Bruce was pretty concerned about, considering. He was still concerned about it, but while Bruce watched Steve build that church, mostly what he thought about was what that having Steve here was the safest anyone around Bruce had ever been since the experiment. Bruce had it pretty well under control-since New York, since Honduras-but he could not deny that he was also one of those superpowered people, and however sound his moral judgment, he would always be a threat. Having Steve around meant that threat was lessened.
Sometimes Bruce watched him, Steve straining against the wooden beams that would brace the ceiling, and all he could think of was what that if they went somewhere secluded, somewhere far from here-he could finally just . . . let go. Maybe Steve could even take it. Bruce didn’t mean to do it; he didn’t even know that he was doing it-but when Bruce watched Steve, he looked to see how Steve moved, how much he could take, what he could withstand and whether he could get away. The odds were not very promising, but they were better than they ever had been with any unarmed human being. Something about that made Bruce feel strangely settled, as though the beast inside, sensing balance, could curl up and go to sleep.
Steve surely didn’t act like he was there to try to pound some sense into him, should Bruce turn into a colossal raging monster. Sometimes Bruce wondered if the thought even ever crossed Steve’s mind. Whether it did or didn’t, Bruce found that over time, tension was easing from his shoulders. When he got a little anxious he thought about Steve’s arms lifting far too many bricks; when he got upset, he thought about the thickness of Steve’s thighs. He thought about Steve taking hit after hit after hit, just taking it and taking it, then getting up again, ruined and golden, but undefeated. Bruce went to sleep thinking of Steve killing him, and for once, he rested in peace.
*
Once Steve got the garden going, he went to Kampala to get the wood floor and paint for the church. Then he got the idea that the school could use computers, which Bruce struggled to explain to him hardly seemed feasible. The school didn’t have power, and was two kilometers from the village, without anything much around it besides farms and huts. The health center was a little more realistic, especially since it wasn’t far from town, and already had electricity.
Steve decided that if the issue really was about power, then there was really only one person in the world he thought should get involved.
“That really isn’t such a good idea,” said Bruce.
“He isn’t an evil man,” said Steve. “In fact, he can be really keen. I mean, unless he’s near me. Which he’s not.”
“I don’t mean because he’s evil,” said Bruce. Steve was at his cottage again; he’d come over because he had this great idea. Bruce didn’t think it was a great idea at all.
“I understand that it would be charity,” Steve said, “but it’s not a quick fix. Once people have power and electricity and know how to use computers, they can build from there.”
“There isn’t the infrastructure in this area,” was all Bruce said.
“Why can’t we build it?”
“He very well could. The question is whether you should.” Bruce started tapping his pen. He’d been going over some notes from his old research.
Steve frowned. “It would benefit people.”
Bruce started turning the pen end to end in his hand. “You ever think maybe it isn’t your job to benefit people?”
Steve just looked at him. “No?”
Of course. It was a stupid question.
“I think you know what I think,” Bruce said, turning back to the paper in front of him.
“I’m just not always sure why,” said Steve.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Bruce said, then turned to Steve again. “I’m sorry. That was really rude. I didn’t mean to-”
Steve gave him a smile that was a lot more like a grimace. “You sort of did. It’s okay, Doctor Banner.”
“No.” Bruce took off his glasses. “It’s not. I should never have-you’re . . .” He looked at Steve’s open, honest face and didn’t even have words for what he was. “You just wanted my advice. Now you’ve got it, and it’s alright for you to make a different decision.”
Steve’s brows went up. “What if it hurts other people?”
Bruce shook his head. “I can’t make you do anything. You do what you think is right, and I . . . do what I can.”
Steve was sort of smirking now, which was a weird thing to see. “That’s why I come to you for advice.”
Bruce looked away. “I thought it was because I’m a great gardener.”
“No, you’re very contrary,” Steve said. “It’s okay. I like it.”
*
As it turned out, Bruce didn’t have to decide whether to discourage Steve from his plan. Someone else made the decision for him.
“He said, ‘don’t be an idiot,’” said Steve.
“Was that it?” said Bruce.
“No,” said Steve. “He called me Captain Planet.”
“He’s a hero,” said Bruce.
“I printed it out. You can read it.”
There was an internet café in town, which Steve used from time to time to communicate with S.H.I.E.L.D. and whoever else-Bruce wasn’t really sure whether Steve knew anyone, besides S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and the Avengers.
Steve never talked about having any problems with the technology at the café. Obviously, he had had some time to learn the ropes, but it also wasn’t like Steve was stupid. Among other things he was incredibly resourceful, and wasn’t afraid of asking for help. Bruce had thought several times before that Steve’s problem in New York had probably gone much deeper than dealing with the unfamiliar technology.
Bruce looked down at the email. It read:
Captain Planet,
If you think that the problems of Africa can be solved by bumbling about in a unitard saving orphans and instilling impoverished peoples with the values of the American Way, you’re even more of a clueless bumpkin than I thought. And my thoughts on the subject were myriad.
I submit for your consideration, the toilet. Every twenty seconds, a child in the world dies as a result of water-borne illness. Should you:
A) Offer to carry buckets of water from the local stream, just as any gentleman would, and see to it yourself that each bucket is thoroughly sanitized,
B) Build a sewer system for the local village, ensuring that all water sources are properly treated and all sewage management is regulated, spending years of your life and ignoring other villages in the meantime,
C) Pour money and resources into a country and/or continent in the hopes that historically unstable local governments will be able to use said resources with the wisdom and efficiency even our own government lacks, or
D) Completely redesign the toilet and all waste management technology such that A, B, and C become moot points and water-borne illness is eliminated.
You probably picked A, didn’t you. I would have hoped that someone in your remote proximity could have explained all of this to you, but it’s become clear that some people would rather put their genius to waste-to the detriment of choice D) and all of us-rather than study and put to use green energy. In all its various forms.
You, alas, are not a genius, nor an engineer; however, you are not lacking in certain energies of your own. Do you want to solve world problems? I have a list of guerilla leaders, terrorists, drug lords and mobsters you would do well to locate. I don’t care if you skip the trial of their peers for crimes against humanity; simply proceed to eliminate. Once you do that, we’ll have a nice chat, and I’ll buy you the apple pie you would most assuredly deserve, my fellow American.
Tl;dr, you’re not going to bring pollution down to zero. I am.
Yours,
T
Sent from I-civilization
Bruce folded the paper and gave it back to Steve. “It’s too bad he doesn’t take his own advice.”
“What do you mean?” Folding the paper one more time, Steve put it in his back pocket.
Bruce took off his glasses. “Stark Industries pours plenty of money into foreign aid charities.”
“Does he know that?” For the first time ever, Steve’s voice was not quite kind.
Bruce looked down, playing with the ear piece on his glasses, opening and closing it. “Pretty sure he’s the one who sets it up.” He looked back up at Steve. “I’m sure you could get the necessary equipment from elsewhere.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What was the point?” Bruce asked quietly.
Steve’s frown deepened.
“He’s not his father, Steve.”
“I know,” said Steve. “I just don’t want him to be . . .”
“On the helicarrier, you said that he only cared about himself.” Bruce opened and closed the glasses. “Do you still think so?”
“Of course not,” said Steve promptly. His shoulders slumped. “Only sometimes.”
“I think he sees the world very differently from you,” said Bruce. “It doesn’t invalidate either viewpoint.”
“What about you?”
Bruce snapped the glasses shut. “What?”
“I’ve always wondered what you two fought about.”
The glasses were in his fist now-Bruce wasn’t sure how they got there-and he had to think carefully about not squeezing. “We didn’t fight,” he said.
“You were certainly pretty thick. Then you just . . . left.”
Bruce concentrated on not breaking the glasses. They were his only pair. “We weren’t thick. I don’t even really know him.”
“You stayed at Stark Tower five days,” Steve pointed out. “If he wasn’t in your face for even half of that time, you’re luckier than most.”
“I think I’ll go for a walk,” said Bruce. Putting his glasses in his pocket, he grabbed the plastic jugs by the door, and went outside.
Steve didn’t approach him until Bruce was filling the fourth jug, possibly because he was just a nice guy like that. “I’m sorry,” Steve said, as though to prove it. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You didn’t.” Bruce didn’t look at him. “I’m not upset.”
“Of course not.” On anyone else, that tone would have sounded sarcastic, but although Steve sounded amused, he also just sounded kind. Steve said, “Let me help you.” He reached down and picked up two of the jugs.
“We didn’t fight,” Bruce said again. “We just have . . . a fundamental difference of opinions.”
Wearing a crooked smile, Steve arched a brow. “Like he and I?”
“Yes. Exactly like that.” Bruce picked up the jugs.
“It’s just that, I don’t know,” Steve said, as they started walking, “he seemed to have similar opinions to you in that email. I don’t mean you sound like a jerk,” and he was still kind, “I just mean, in essentials.”
“I’m nothing like Tony,” Bruce said, mainly because Tony had said almost exactly what Bruce would say, if only Bruce had believed that the world was simple enough to say it.
They walked back in the cottage, where Bruce got the water purification tablets out from one of the crates, then put them in the jugs. “What about the rest of the email?” Steve said, putting his own jugs on the counter next to the stove.
“What about it?” Bruce said, adding tablets to those jugs too.
“The terrorists and drug lords,” Steve said. “Do you think I should be hunting them down?”
Bruce began setting up the water filter. The filter only got some of the bacteria; the tablets were supposed to take care of the rest. Bruce was pretty sure that his body would have done it all for him; at this point, all his gut flora had probably long since died from radiation. It was the radiation itself that was keeping him alive. He still liked to be careful-besides, sometimes he had guests. “I don’t know,” was all he said.
“Why not?” Steve said. “Mister Stark seemed to think it was pretty clear cut.”
Steve leaned up against the wall by the door. He was mostly in shadow there, at that angle, the strong broad lines of him a little gray and a lot less certain. Bruce went back to setting up the filter, pouring the water in. “The world would probably thank you for assassinating several people I can think of,” Bruce said. “It just makes me wonder what comes next.”
“Al-Qaeda,” said Steve.
“Among other things.” Bruce poured the water.
“Such as?”
“What about foreign dictators? Would you have killed Saddam Hussein? Are you going to kill Kim Jong-un? What are you going to do about the next coup in Central America? Human rights violations in the Middle East?” Bruce uncapped the next jug. “What if you just don’t like someone’s face?”
“I have a really good retort for that,” said Steve. “It’s biting and sarcastic and about Tony Stark, but it doesn’t seem appropriate.”
Bruce glanced at him. Steve’s face was turned in this direction, but he wasn’t quite looking at Bruce, as though fascinated instead by the pouring of the water. He wasn’t smiling at all. “What do you think?” Bruce said.
“What?” Startled, Steve managed to pull his eyes away from Bruce’s hands long enough to meet his eyes.
“You’re always asking me what I think,” said Bruce. “What do you think? That’s the only thing that matters, when it comes to what you do.”
“I don’t know,” Steve said, something in his voice-maybe chagrin. He smiled a little, ran his hand through his hair and then kept it there, resting on his neck, looking down at the ground. The line of his lips was troubled.
Bruce took the water coming out from under the filter and poured it into another bottle. Time for more saline solution-the clinic could use it anyway, even if he didn’t.
“Why don’t you like people to touch you?” Steve asked.
Bruce poured the salt in. He closed the bottle, shook it, didn’t turn around. “Giant beast of wrath. I think that covers it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Steve. “That’s personal. I shouldn’t have asked. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Bruce took out another bottle before that salt was really mixed, checked the water in the filter, which wasn’t finished either, measured out another percentage of salt, poured more water in the filter, checked it again. He still didn’t turn around.
Steve didn’t leave while Bruce pretended that he had very important things to do; maybe Bruce should have actually gone on that walk, or told Steve to leave, or told Steve why he didn’t much like touching, or showed Steve why he didn’t much like touching, which was why Bruce just kept standing there, not looking, not doing anything except keeping his hands busy.
Steve didn’t leave. As far as Bruce could tell, he had barely moved.
“I thought a lot about what you said,” Steve said, after that long, excruciating silence. “About the government. I’ve read about Vietnam. Korea, Iraq.”
When Bruce glanced back, Steve still had his hand on the back of his neck. He was still watching the bottles and beakers, salt and Bruce’s hands, but Bruce’s guess was he wasn’t really seeing them.
“I read about Hiroshima, too,” said Steve. “Nagasaki. If you were Phase Two, was I Phase Zero? I look at what we’ve done, about all the scientists who had to engineer me, and then I start thinking maybe I’m just another Manhattan Project after all.”
“You have a mind,” said Bruce.
Steve smiled gratefully, a not quite pleasant twist of his lips. “Mister Stark doesn’t think so. He thinks I’m good for exactly one thing.”
“He didn’t mean it like that,” Bruce said, immediately and without forethought.
Steve’s lips twisted further. “Are you defending me, or him?”
Bruce turned back to the counter.
“Let’s face it, Doctor Banner. If the people who built me had intended for me to solve the world’s problems with my brain, they wouldn’t have left that the same and changed all the rest. They intended me to use a fist.”
“I meant that you can decide where to use it,” said Bruce.
“Can I?”
“Yes.” Bruce didn’t intend his voice to be so rough. His fist curled on the counter. “You do get to decide. You should keep in mind that some weapons don’t.”
“Doctor Banner.” Steve stepped closer.
“It’s fine.” Putting the traitor fist in his pocket, Bruce turned around. “Really, it’s fine. I didn’t mean to imply that it’s an easy decision for you to make. It isn’t. It shouldn’t be.”
“Mister Stark seems to think it is.”
Bruce put his other hand in his pocket too. “You want to know what’s wrong with Tony Stark?”
The corner of Steve’s mouth twitched up. “I could probably name plenty of things.”
“In your day, a good fight was legit. These days, war-not so universally approved. What we really want is an incisive, directed strike eliminating completely anyone or anything that stands in the way of the pursuit of happiness. We want the defense of democracy at the lowest threshold of bloodshed, but we will sacrifice anything from privacy to simple decency to make that strike.” Bruce kept his hands in his pockets. “So we made Tony Stark. He’s the American dream, you know.”
“And the sacrifice?” said Steve.
Bruce pursed his lips. “I’ve never been able to decide. Every single thing Tony’s ever done with that suit has been completely legitimized by the outcome.”
“What do you mean?”
Bruce looked up at him. “I mean that I don’t have a clue, when it comes to right and wrong.”
Tilting his head, Steve said, “I think you do.”
“I appreciate that. But sometimes I think not claiming to know the right answer is the only moral choice that you can make.”
Steve frowned. “Then what’s the point of making any choice at all?”
“That’s the problem,” said Bruce. “I don’t know if there is a point.”
*
Though Steve didn’t seem particularly angry at Tony, he didn’t seem particularly pleased, either. Over the next few weeks he seemed restless, going over the plans to get the computers into the clinic and rejecting them-probably thinking too much about what Tony had said, and second guessing himself. Bruce thought that Steve was not going to be able to justify his presence here much longer, and felt vindicated the day that Steve kidnapped him.
Steve had driven up in a jeep, which had brought Bruce outside. Automobiles in this immediate vicinity were relatively rare, but Steve didn’t explain. He said hello and how are you, and they went into the cottage. Bruce went back to calibrating the microscope he’d recently gotten from Kampala, while Steve easily lifted the crate that held Bruce’s clothes and most of his worldly possessions with one hand.
“Um, okay.” Bruce tinkered with the microscope some more. “So, that’s stealing.”
Steve walked out with the crate, and then came back.
Finally, it dawned on Bruce, and a sick feeling began somewhere low down in his stomach. “Are we going somewhere?” he asked, very calmly, and took the slide out from under the clips.
Steve smiled-not very innocently, for all that he was Captain America. “Why, are you busy?”
“Depends on where we’re going.”
A wrinkle appeared between Steve’s brows. “You’re not wearing a shirt,” he said, as though he had just noticed.
“They’re drying,” said Bruce. He only had the two. “Outside. Did you want to steal those too?”
“Yes.” Steve just kept looking at him, head slightly tilted. “You just don’t look very scientist-like right now.”
Bruce was starting to get impatient. “They only want me for my gamma expertise? Are you going to feed me that line-seriously? Again?”
“What?” Steve seemed distracted. Maybe he was feeling remorse about being a dirty rotten traitor. “No.”
“It sure was a long game you played.” It probably wasn’t a good idea to handle glass objects right now. The sick feeling had spread up to Bruce’s chest and was slowly squeezing, and who knew what would happen if he broke the slide and nicked himself. He carefully put the slide back in its box.
“What are you looking at?” Steve came up to the bench, as though by looking at the slides he could tell what they were.
“Blood,” said Bruce.
“Is it yours?”
“Some of it.”
Idly, Steve touched the box that held the slides, carefully keeping his fingers from the slides themselves. “Can I look at it some time?”
“Why?”
Steve shrugged. “I want to see how your blood is different than mine.”
The feeling in Bruce’s chest eased. “You’re not taking me to S.H.I.E.L.D.”
“What?” Abruptly, Steve focused. “Wait, do you really think I would?”
“No.” Bruce took off his glasses. “I thought that. For a minute or two. I’m sorry. You just came in here, and you-” Steve’s brows puckered, and Bruce made a pointless gesture with his hand. “I’m sorry.”
Steve looked at him a little while, then a smile started playing at the corner of his mouth. It was a fond smile, the kind he used when looking at children or girls in pretty dresses or homes with happy people inside of them, and it made Bruce very uncomfortable that that kind of smile was directed at him. “I think you should come with me,” Steve said. “Just for a while. Two or three days, tops.”
For a moment, Bruce didn’t move. “Okay,” he said, which he guessed meant that he trusted Steve implicitly. In his experience, that had never been a good idea.
Then again, he never used to know Steve Rogers.
*
Bruce got his shirts off the line and put one of them on. They got in the jeep, and Steve drove northwest. As far as Bruce knew, there wasn’t much in that direction besides grass, plantations, and then more grass. Wild boar, elephants, maybe, but certainly not that much that Bruce would have come out here to see.
“Is there any point to asking where we’re going?”
Steve grinned his crooked grin. “Nope.”
“Thief and kidnapper,” Bruce murmured, and slouched in the seat. He supposed if he was going to be kidnapped, this was the best of all possible ways-out here in the open, where if he went crazy, little more than the jeep and some trees and maybe Steve would be utterly destroyed. There wasn’t much to drive him crazy, except not having anything to do with his hands.
“You should take up knitting,” Steve said at one point.
“That sounds more like you than me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think you’re swell,” said Bruce. “Wake me up when we get there.”
Bruce didn’t actually go to sleep, but he opened his eyes when Steve stopped the jeep. “Are we there yet?”
“Doctor Banner.” Steve’s voice was hushed and low.
Bruce thought he should probably tell Steve to call him Bruce, but he knew he wasn’t ever going to. He’d have liked to think it was something very dramatic, such as not letting people get too close to him, but in all likelihood, it was probably just that he wanted to see how long Steve would go on calling him Doctor Banner. Probably forever, which Bruce found amusing, because he was kind of a dick.
Steve’s hand had clamped down on Bruce’s shoulder. Not saying anything, Steve slowly stood up in the jeep, hand tight on Bruce, as though for reassurance and leverage both. He was looking into the distance, so Bruce looked too.
There were elephants after all. Lots of them. Of course, because African elephants were a perfectly American past time.
Bruce should have felt bad for thinking that, but Steve had this look of rather naked wonder on his face, and Bruce concluded that you didn’t have to be American to be moved by huge, awesome beasts. If Bruce wasn’t a huge, awesome beast himself, he’d probably be moved too. Instead, he was a jaded sonuvabitch.
Steve was getting out of the jeep, but he was doing it the hard way, climbing over the back and their stuff, then over the door. He did so silently, as though afraid to make a sound-as though getting out on his own side would be farther away from the elephants and so unbearable. Bruce found that he sort of missed the pressure of his hand.
There must have been at least thirty elephants, heading their way, but at a leisurely pace. There were baby elephants and old ones, the old ones on the perimeter while the babies stayed in the middle. They really were amazing creatures, Bruce guessed, and then mostly looked at Steve, who stared at them with rapt attention.
Steve mostly wore blue jeans. Bruce found that a little odd; Steve was a lot more Jimmy Stewart than James Dean; he was early 1940s, not 1950s, even if he did drive a motorcycle. Bruce guessed that Steve had just looked around New York and tried to find out how to be quintessentially American. He probably ate a lot of McDonald’s, too, and that was after his time.
The jeans were low slung on Steve’s hips, and Bruce was just impressed that he wasn’t wearing a little khaki shirt with matching shorts, if he was going to take him on safari. Because that’s what this was. Captain America was taking him on safari.
“I did get us hats,” Steve said, when Bruce pointed this out.
“Hats,” Bruce said.
“Yup.” Steve just kept smiling. The elephants had at last passed them by-not a quarter mile from the jeep, which they didn’t seem to care about-and Steve was driving again. “It’s alright if you’re too self-conscious to wear it. I know you’re really shy.”
Bruce snorted. “Did you really?”
Steve looked at him innocently. “Did you want a hat, Doctor Banner? I can get you a hat.”
“Yes,” said Bruce. “I want a hat. I want a hat for my safari, and I want those little shorts.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Steve said. “Who said anything about a safari?”
“Just so you know,” Bruce slumped in his seat again, and closed his eyes, “I’m not hunting anything.”
Steve was quiet for a moment. “Not even lions?”
“No,” said Bruce. “I don’t hunt anything below me on the food chain.”
“What if I find you a rhinoceros?” Steve rested the tips of his fingers on the bottom of the steering wheel and his other arm on the driver’s side door. It was not at all the ten-and-two steering you were taught in school. Rogers was such a rebel. “Doctor Banner,” he said earnestly, “I really, really want to see you fight a rhino. Please? For me.”
“Find me a T-rex,” said Bruce. “Then we’ll talk.”
“Back in my day we fought mastodons and called it good.”
“Wow,” said Bruce. “You’re older than I thought. Why are you stopping again?” Steve nodded in the distance, and Bruce looked in that direction. “A lake. It’s very pretty.”
“If you were a man at all, you would wrestle these hippos with me.” Steve got out of the car, and started walking.
When he kept walking, Bruce got out of the car too. “I’ve heard that hippos are very territorial,” he called out.
“Then it’ll be exciting, won’t it?”
Bruce kind of sort of started jogging. When he caught up, Steve said, “You’re worried about me. That’s so sweet.”
“I said I wasn’t fighting any animals.”
Steve laughed. He laughed and laughed, and Bruce guessed it was okay that they were on safari. The hippos were actually pretty neat. “Trust me,” Steve said, “watching the Hulk fight wild African animals is at the very end of my to-do list.” He smiled at Bruce. “But it’s nice to know you’re looking out for me.”
They watched the hippos from a distance. They sort of looked like huge, lumbering boulders, with birds atop them picking off invisible mites. From time to time, they would splash about, looking both clumsy and strangely graceful, and for a moment now and then, Bruce felt this odd flash of . . . discomfort, maybe, thinking about his own size. At the same time, he couldn’t help but admire them, all that flesh and mass and muscle; they were strong and elegant in their own way, just another of Earth’s miracles. It made him wonder how he looked, when he-
But of course, Bruce had seen footage. Only a little, because there were usually so many things exploding when he was Hulk that it was difficult to get a straight shot, but Bruce had seen enough to make himself lose his lunch more than once. God, it was awful, but then he looked at the hippos, and thought: comparing yourself to a hippo. Come on and admit it, Banner. That’s funny.
“I wish you were young enough to have seen Fantasia,” said Bruce.
“I’ve seen Fantasia,” said Steve.
“Really?”
“It was only a few years-I mean,” Steve said quickly, “it was in 1940.”
Bruce watched the hippos. “I liked ‘Rite of Spring’ best.”
“That’s unexpected.”
Bruce grimaced. “Maybe ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ was a little too close to home.”
“I would have thought ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ would have been a little too close to home.”
Startled, Bruce looked up at him, because ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ was about pretty much the most epic of all demon rage monsters. Even if Bruce thought of himself that way, somewhere along the line he’d started thinking that maybe Steve didn’t.
Steve gave him a crooked grin.
“I can’t believe you said that to me,” said Bruce.
“It’s not my fault everything is always about you,” said Steve.
“At least I’m not the stupid centaur song no one even remembers.”
“Neither am I.” Steve lifted his chin, looking so noble and genuine that Bruce started trying to come up with more American icons, until Steve came up with one for him. “I’m Mickey.”
*
They stayed the night at a tourist lodge, and were driving again by the next morning. Occasionally there were people on the road-boys on bicycles, women carrying baskets.
“We’re going to Murchison Falls,” Bruce said, a little later in the day.
“You got me,” said Steve. “But I was also hoping for giraffes.”
“I won’t fight those either.” Bruce watched the savannah pass them by. “This reminds me of David Livingstone.”
Steve flashed a grin at him. “I thought of that.” He was often fairly good-natured about the references he did and didn’t get, but of course it made sense that he got this one. Livingstone had explored Africa in the Victorian Era. “I mean, he was a scientist.” The smile turned rueful. “Sorry. I was never really into any science, except for science fiction. I always thought Doctor Livingstone seemed keen, though.”
Of course Doctor Livingstone had seemed keen. He’d been a thorough Protestant, started out as a factory worker and pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He had spoken out forcefully against slavery, though he had still used slaves and slave traders in his expeditions. He had been wrong about the source of the Nile, but he had made several geographical discoveries.
Bruce was sort of talking about him without really realizing it when Steve said, “I guess other people already knew about those, though. I mean, the people already living here.”
“True.” Bruce drummed his hands on his thighs some more. “But he opened up the way for other missionaries to come to Africa, and however you feel about that, they did help some with health care.”
“I suppose.”
“And now that I think about it,” Bruce went on drumming, “we’re sitting pretty much in the middle of the Great Rift Valley. Mary Leakey made some pretty famous discoveries not far from here.”
Steve didn’t know who Mary Leakey was, so Bruce told him about her, Louis Leakey, Richard Leakey, the Laotoli footprints and Austrolopithicus bosei. Then he realized that Steve had completely missed Lucy, Donald Johanson’s famous discovery, and he was explaining something about upright hominids and skull cases, when it occurred to him that Steve probably didn’t believe in evolution.
“That’s okay,” said Steve. “I think it’s interesting.”
Bruce thought about Adam and Eve again. He guessed Steve made him think about it sort of a lot.
“You can believe what you want to, Doctor Banner,” Steve said, and Bruce couldn’t stop himself from saying:
“It’s not a belief, though. It’s-” He stopped. The problem was, if Steve was Adam or Eve, what did that make Bruce?
Steve glanced away from the road to look at him. “You do have a rather extended vocabulary.”
Bruce’s fingers ran over the other fist, the way they sometimes did. “I get carried away.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Bruce thought that if there was nothing wrong with that, then his life would probably be a whole lot easier.
Steve glanced at him again. “Misses Leakey sounds like an interesting lady,” he said, in an encouraging way.
“She was.”
“You sound like you sort of had a crush on her.”
Bruce gave him a wry smile. “I was always more of a Marie Curie kind of guy.”
“Of course you were.” Steve grinned. “Come on. Tell me about radioactivity.”
“You should learn Luganda first,” said Bruce. “Chemistry and physics after.”
Steve laughed. “I said, it’s okay. Come on and talk.”
Bruce frowned. “Why didn’t you just bring an audio book?”
“Because I didn’t know they made those.” Steve glanced over at him. “And I like it when you’re having a good time.”
The problem about going on safari with Steve Rogers was that he was quite kind, and very genuine, and he was from 1943, so he didn’t see anything at all gay about it.
*
Go to: part 3