FIC: The Hollow Men (3/3) (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.
Previous parts: 1 | 2
Before ending in a single river to empty into Egypt’s famous delta, the Nile River starts as tributaries, the Blue Nile and the White. The White Nile flows through Lake Victoria, on Uganda’s southeast border, and winds its way to Lake Kyoga. From there, it flows further north, where it must push through a seven meter gap to continue on its way to meet with Lake Albert.
From the bottom, Murchison Falls wasn’t exactly a spectacular sight. There were several little humps at the base that denied access to the highest falls, and the turn in the river somewhat obscured the view.
Steve and Bruce got on a boat manned by a man named Moses, who warned them against the crocodiles. Bruce thought Steve was going to make jokes about fighting crocodiles, too, but as it turned out Steve was too enamored of them. It rather surprised Bruce that Steve didn’t seem to be the camera-toting type, but perhaps it was a result of a rather over-developed sense of wonder. Snapping a photo maybe would have lessened it, somehow.
Still, taking pictures of Steve with a crocodile definitely crossed Bruce’s mind. Steve was practically Lewis to his Clark. Captain fucking Kirk to his Spock.
Sometimes, Bruce still couldn’t believe Steve was Captain America, the miracle of science, the great invention. He’d thought of Steve the way other people thought of light bulbs, internal combustion engines, penicillin, microchips, the Large Hadron Collider. Bruce looked at Steve now and didn’t think of any of those things. Steve looked like just a man, and Bruce felt something strange.
It was something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time for a thing that wasn’t a nuclear generator or a particular tenacious strand of DNA-it was admiration. Bruce whole-heartedly admired him, and for the longest time, he’d found human beings so very ugly.
Eschewing the requisite guide, Steve and Bruce got off the boat on the other side of the river, and made the hike up to the top of the falls. In the woods, they saw baboons, who bared their teeth and showed them their bare bottoms, and once or twice threw fruit from the trees. “They remind me of someone,” Steve said as they hiked.
“Us,” said Bruce, because they did.
Steve shook his head. “No. I’m taking about the way they walk-it’s a swagger, really. I know someone who walks that way, with his chest thrust out. I’m trying to think of who.” He thwacked some leaves with a machete. “Oh, I’ve got it. Tony Stark.”
Bruce waited for Steve to clear more of the brush (Indiana Jones, John Smith, John Henry). “You don’t like him?”
Steve grunted, hacking the vines. “I have no opinion of Tony Stark.”
“That sounds like an opinion.”
“I want to like him,” said Steve. “I’ve tried. Sometimes he’s really amenable to me liking him. Sometimes he seems to want the exact opposite.”
Bruce could have all kinds of thoughts about that. He probably did, but he wasn’t going to look at them. He tried not to think of Tony at all, when he could help it.
They walked the rest of the way in relative silence, but for the roar of the water beyond the jungle, and the calls of at least a hundred different species of bird. When they got to the top and saw the water, it was breath-taking.
Bruce hadn’t been awed by the elephants. He should have been awed by the elephants; he didn’t know what was wrong with him. Maybe he just didn’t have that gene; maybe he’d been in the wrong mood. Maybe he’d been distracted enough by Steve’s jeans and the fact that he was on safari, that he’d forgotten to be awed by the elephants; maybe it would just take a while to sink in.
But Bruce was awed by this. All the life-giving force and the death-dealing terror of the Nile was packed between these steep mighty rocks, and pouring in a thundering crash far below to the distant Earth, those ancient stones pummeled for millennia by the towering rush.
Bruce loved the Hubble Telescope. There was something about all that wealth of technology and knowledge packed into that single great machine and turned in one direction, aimed at that single point of the universe. There was something, too, about Steve-all that human strength and power condensed into this one individual, this miracle of ingenuity and biology, a graceful instrument of strength, but also of precision.
Facing the falls, Bruce could feel the spray. He could see rainbows dancing in the mist, and he thought: there is still so much to discover, because man had mastered this. He had learned how to take all this raw, unbridled power and direct it to just cause-not in this particular instance, but Bruce saw the falls, and thought of diverting rivers, of dams and hydraulic power.
If man could master this, he could master other things.
All of space and the human body, no matter how mutated, lay in wait for man’s unlimited power to know.
Steve said something, and Bruce looked over at him. “What?” Bruce yelled, over the roar.
Steve put his lips by Bruce’s ear. “I said, it’s humbling,” Steve yelled.
Bruce felt just the opposite.
*
On the way back home, Steve bought a box of mangos at a stand on the side of the road, stopped to take them to the school, and Bruce almost hulked out.
It happened just outside the school. Steve had gone up to take the crate inside, and was on his way back. There were lots of children outside, some of them playing soccer, some of the other little ones running around and chasing each other. Somewhere, three girls were singing:
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
It was just those lyrics, over and over. Bruce didn’t know whether Steve had taught it to them, or whether that was just something they sang here. Either way, the girls had forgotten the rest of the words.
Naturally, Steve stopped to talk to at least half the children. Bruce finally got out of the jeep, hips leaning against the side, watching Steve like he sometimes did. Steve was doing this thing where kids were sitting on his feet and he was walking with them clinging to him like koalas. Seeming to finally remember Bruce was there, he looked up, waved, then bent to tell the kids something. Reluctantly, they let him go, and Steve started walking back to the car.
Because Steve was turned toward him, and Bruce was facing the yard, Bruce noticed the disturbance first. One of the school teachers-not Lillian, the usual girl, but instead a man Bruce had seen once or twice before-was dragging a boy by the arm to the flat grass in the field. The teacher carried a cane.
‘Twas all in good fun, the girls finally sang, and then stopped. Steve turned around to see what had silenced them.
It didn’t really take any sort of thought to realize what Steve would do, though later Bruce would realize he might have had a different reaction. Steve saw what was going to happen, and started moving.
Bruce didn’t think about it at all either. He took two large steps and grabbed Steve by the arm. “Don’t,” he said.
“He’s going to,” Steve said, but didn’t even finish, just pulled out of Bruce’s grip.
The school teacher made the boy kneel on the lawn.
This time, Bruce moved in front of Steve. “You can’t do this,” he said, but Steve could, because he just brushed past him, as though Bruce wasn’t even there. He had eyes for nothing except that child in the yard.
The cane came down; Steve got closer, and Bruce could feel the ripple under his skin. Jogging after Steve, Bruce grabbed him by the arm again, hard enough to pull him around. “You better not,” Bruce said, rather calmly, considering, “or I’ll get angry.”
Steve was on a mission, but that stopped him. “Doctor Banner,” Steve said, and his eyes narrowed.
Bruce, feeling his hands tighten into fists, said, “Let’s go.”
Steve glanced at him, then back at the school yard. Bruce had come to think of Steve as a warm, compassionate man, but when Steve looked at that school teacher, all of that seemed gone. In its place was coldness, and there was something uncanny about that too, something unnerving. Somehow Bruce had managed to forget that Steve was a warrior-and here he was; this was it. This man had killed people too.
Bruce felt his eyes go hot and thought, he could stop this. “Right now,” said Bruce.
Steve’s jaw clenched, and for a moment, he wavered. Then at last, decision made, his hand descended firmly on Bruce’s bicep, and he turned him around. Then he started walking toward the jeep.
The problem was the boy was wailing now and Bruce totally could have ripped that school teacher’s head off. Bruce could see absolutely no way in which there was a problem with that, since he wasn’t going to do it. He just totally could have.
Steve’s hand tightened then, and he was pushing him. When they got to the jeep he didn’t even say anything, just opened the door and hauled Bruce into the passenger side, and Bruce decided right about then he didn’t like being manhandled. Poor fucking Steve. He just wanted to do the right thing.
That fucking kid was still fucking screaming.
Pop goes the weasel.
Steve revved the engine, and then they were pulling. A couple of the kids watched them go. It was totally cool, and everything was going to be fine. Sure, Steve could’ve taken that cane and showed that teacher just what he could do with it, but the teacher would have been angry, and then, who knew, Bruce might’ve smashed his face in. He hadn’t, so that was . . . friendly of him.
Except how Bruce could still hear that goddamn screaming and Steve, so fucking righteous, was sitting there all clenched and stiff with his foot clamped down on the gas like he couldn’t fucking stop for a single fucking bump, as thought that might infringe upon his fucking noble rage-
But everything was really alright. He could not stop hating them-
That fucking teacher-
Fucking Steve, such a goody two-shoes-
Dad, the belt, that crack in the kitchen tile-
The goddamn fucking bumps-
-but Bruce could clench his jaw, and he’d found that numbed his hearing a bit. He could unfocus his eyes, and he found that kept him from seeing red. He could clench his fists so tightly that his fingers ached and slowly, oh so slowly, uncurl his fingers one by one. Big deep breaths, diaphragm and up, in out in out in out, close his eyes and breathe. Curl his toes, unclench his jaw. Open his throat way up in the back so it could scream, relax his shoulders. Keep going and going and going, muscle by muscle, until he could hear himself think again, and that thought was: okay okay okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. It’s going to be okay.
There was a reason why cultural interference was a bad idea.
There was a reason why he should not be angry with Steve.
There was a reason why he shouldn’t kill his father: Dad was already dead.
Here was Bruce’s secret: it was perfectly alright to feel angry. It was not okay to do anything about it.
“You’re a coward,” that was what Tony had said, and Bruce had been alright with that. He’d been fine with that, because Iron Man and the Hulk and Thor and even Captain America, they were weapons, and even if Tony was alright with using them, Bruce couldn’t be. He could never be.
And if it wasn’t for these fucking bumps-
“Slow down.” Bruce tried to say it in a normal way, but it came out rather ragged.
Steve’s jaw ticked, and he immediately slowed down.
They drove for a long time, back across the barren savannah, the way they’d come. Bruce kept breathing deeply, and thought: this way, there had been elephants. Elephants were tremendous beings of epic proportions, and yet they could be very gentle. They ate plants and cared for their young, and were very social animals. For centuries, men had hunted them for their ivory, and Thomas Edison killed one with electricity once, just to show what alternating current could do.
Bruce had seen one in a circus when he was seven. He’d touched it. It had been warm.
Steve stopped the jeep, got out. Slammed the door shut a little harder than was necessary, but when he walked off a few feet away to stand farther down the road, he didn’t do anything but jam his hands inside his pockets. The lines of his back were tight and strong. His head bowed down, the sun arcing down toward west, as though unable to bear his gaze.
After a while, Bruce got out of the jeep and went to stand beside him. There wasn’t anyone on the road, and the trees over in the north looked like low dark clouds with legs. The grasshoppers clicked in low tones in the grass, and Bruce said softly, “I’m sorry.”
Steve looked down at him, the yellow sun dimly reflected in his face. “Are you alright?”
“I won’t bust,” said Bruce.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Steve said, tone clipped. “I’m going back to the school.” He turned back to the jeep.
“Wait a minute.” Steve turned back, and Bruce licked his lips. “You,” he began, then trailed off.
“You said you were alright,” said Steve. He looked like he was strung as tightly as one of Barton’s bows.
“They had corporal punishment back in your day,” Bruce said.
Steve’s mouth went tight. “I’m sorry?”
Of course they’d had corporal punishment in Steve’s day. They’d had more of it. That was sort of the point, but somehow with the way that Steve was looking at him, Bruce felt awful making said point. He pressed on anyway. “It’s accepted in this culture,” he said. “That is, it’s against the law, but it’s commonly practiced in-”
“It’s not acceptable in any culture.” Steve’s eyes were about as cold as the ice they’d cut him out of.
“I know that,” Bruce said gently.
“Then excuse me, why are we having this conversation?”
“Steve, you can’t just . . .”
Steve waited. When Bruce didn’t finish, Steve took a step closer. “Bullshit.”
“Steve,” Bruce said, and didn’t really know whether it was a protest or a warning. Something inside him was thrumming.
“I said, bullshit,” said Steve. “You could do so much; you could be so much, and you don’t. You sit there wallowing, thinking about so many things you can’t do until there are a thousand things you won’t do. And the one time you decide to do something-the one time-it’s to stop me from doing the right thing?” He took a step closer, until he was right in Bruce’s face. “How dare you?”
“You’re right.” Bruce looked up at him. “I don’t like you when you’re angry.”
“You want have at it?” said Steve. “Let’s have at it. Right now. You and me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Bruce.
“Him and me,” said Steve.
Pressing his lips together, Bruce finally looked away. “I’ve been thinking about the elephants.”
“Doctor Banner.” Steve’s voice was strained.
“I’m really glad I got to see those.” On this lonely road, it seemed as though there were little in the world besides the sun, the sky, the road and the jeep. When Bruce listened, he could hear the grasshoppers again; when his eyes sought them out, he could see the trees. Somewhere underground there were mole-rats building burrows; there were ants and other things. Somewhere in the trees there were birds and monkeys; somewhere there were elephants.
“Doctor Banner,” Steve said again, his voice more even.
Bruce turned back, and Steve’s eyes had melted into warmth.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Steve said.
“I know,” said Bruce. “I’m sorry.”
“They did have that in my time,” said Steve. “I saw it happen. It happened to me. Before, I was never strong enough to do anything about it, but it doesn’t make a difference. The only difference is that now I can actually stop those who would hurt others who are weaker. I’m strong enough to do that now.”
Bruce swallowed. “I know,” he said again.
“You don’t have to agree,” said Steve.
Bruce thought about trying to discuss why it was not a good idea for Steve to exert his authority over someone else in a society that was not his own, but then again, they’d already discussed it. “Alright,” said Bruce.
Steve nodded, the way that soldiers did, and said, “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
“You’re bad at losing your temper,” said Bruce. “Sometime, remind me to show you how it’s done.”
“Not many things make me very angry,” said Steve. “Some things do, though.”
They got into the jeep. Steve revved the engine again, and turned the vehicle around. The savannah began to shoot past, beige and dry, dust kicking up in the road. Bruce knew that mulberries grew in Africa, but he kept thinking of the poem that went: Here we go ‘round the prickly pear. Here on this desolate road, a thousand things could have happened, but nothing had. Somehow it almost seemed worse.
The poem ended:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
*
Three days later, Bruce hadn’t heard from Steve, and Solomon came over to his cottage. Solomon had asked Irene to marry him, and they had announced their plan to move to Kampala so they could go to school and find work. Solomon had come to ask Bruce to look at his résumé. Bruce went over it with him, and they talked about the future. Bruce thought Solomon would make a fine doctor.
“Thank you,” said Solomon. “I think that you would make a fine doctor too.”
Bruce’s mouth twisted. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You never acted like you were going to stay.” Solomon was a powerfully built young man with sharp eyes and prominent ears. His head was shaved and he often wore a smile, but he wasn’t smiling now. “Captain Rogers didn’t make friends with the school principal,” he said, after a while.
Bruce looked down at Solomon’s résumé, took off his glasses. He guessed the principal was the man with the cane. “I suppose he didn’t,” Bruce said.
“The principal hasn’t paid Miss Lillian in over three months,” said Solomon. “Captain Rogers didn’t like that either.”
“I suppose he wouldn’t,” was all Bruce said.
“Now the people in the village are saying Captain Rogers will make the principle pay,” said Solomon, “and the principal is saying that Captain Rogers is stealing from the people by taking the bank loan for the garden.”
“Steve wouldn’t take a diamond ring out of a garbage can,” said Bruce.
“Everybody knows that, but that is what the principal says.” Solomon tilted his head. “What do you think?”
“I don’t.” Looking down, Bruce started fiddling with his glasses. “I don’t have any opinion.”
“You don’t think Captain Rogers should make the principal pay?”
“I don’t think it’s any of my business.”
“I think the principal, he’s afraid of Captain Rogers.”
“Steve would never hurt anyone,” Bruce lied.
“You don’t think so?” Solomon raised his brows. “Captain Rogers sure lets us know he’s mighty strong.”
Looking down, Bruce found his glasses in his fist again. He switched them to the other fist. He put them down. “He would never hurt anyone unless he has to,” said Bruce.
“Ah,” said Solomon. “When he has to.”
Bruce shook his head. “Steve would be appalled at the idea of anyone here seeing him as a threat. He would never hurt anyone here; he doesn’t-” He stopped himself.
“He doesn’t have to.” Solomon’s voice was quiet.
Bruce looked up. “Steve would never fight anyone who wasn’t his physical equal.”
“And we are puny.” Solomon smiled wryly. “Professor, I understand.”
Bruce shook his head again. “He doesn’t look at it that way. He doesn’t see himself as superior.”
“Of course not.” Solomon kept his easy smile. “He is Captain Rogers. Quite humble.”
Looking at the glasses-somehow in his fist once again-Bruce said, “He’s just trying to do what’s right.”
Solomon’s voice was still soft. “I think that for a century, white men have come to my country to do what’s right. Somehow they think they know that better than we. Of course, before that, they came to my country to do what’s wrong. It’s an improvement, I suppose.”
Bruce’s fist tightened. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry? You come, you pay your rent, you mind your own business. No problem. I plan to be a tourist myself someday.” The wry smile was playing on Solomon’s lips.
“Tourist,” said Bruce, and played with the glasses some more.
“Yes. Irene will become a great physicist, world renowned, and we will visit the great Doctor Banner in New York.”
“Why would I be in New York?”
Solomon just kept smiling. “You are not an Avenger, then?”
Bruce’s lips twisted in a return smile, not quite mirthful. “You know.”
“You think we don’t see the world news, because we are in a remote part of the country.”
“No. Well.” Bruce’s lips twisted further. “I look a little different than I do on the news.”
“Smaller,” Solomon suggested.
“Just trying to fit in.”
Solomon just laughed.
*
“Come in,” Bruce said about a week later, when there was a knock on his door.
“Hello, Doct-you’re shaving,” said Steve.
“Stranger things have happened.” Bruce finished spreading on the shaving cream, and dipped his razor into the bowl of water in front of him. He’d seen Steve a couple times since Steve had driven him away from the school yard. Bruce thought that they were okay, but they hadn’t really talked about it.
“What’s the momentous occasion?” Steve asked.
“It itched,” said Bruce, and pulled the razor down the side of his cheek.
For a moment, Steve just stood there in the shadow of the door, while Bruce stood over the bowl of water and carefully moved the razor over his face. “Why are you doing that without a mirror?” Steve asked at last.
“I don’t have one,” said Bruce. He wasn’t going to tell him that he didn’t like mirrors.
“You could hurt yourself,” said Steve.
“I’ve done it before.”
“So I’ve heard.” Steve didn’t sound happy about it.
Bruce rinsed the razor again. “Trust me. I only plan on a minor transformation.”
“You mean I just need to worry about guns.”
Steve obviously remembered what Bruce had told them in the helicarrier. Bruce didn’t like it, but his hand moved steadily over his chin. “Then again,” he said, tone just as steady, “you may want to watch it. I am holding a sharp object relatively close to my neck.”
“You don’t want to talk about it.”
“Not particularly.” Bruce rinsed the razor.
“Alright.” Steve sat down, settling into Bruce’s line of sight. Bruce looked at the wall even though there wasn’t any mirror. “There was something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Steve said.
Bruce glanced at him then. Steve’s expression was pensive, thoughtful eyes watching Bruce’s hands. Bruce looked away. He didn’t like the serious note in Steve’s voice, and he had been expecting Steve to want to talk about what had happened.
“I thought a lot about what Mister Stark said,” Steve went on.
“You don’t have to listen to Tony.” Bruce put the razor in the water.
“I know I don’t,” said Steve. “That doesn’t mean I can’t.” He watched as Bruce brought the razor down over his upper lip. “I’ve just been thinking about what I’m doing here.”
Bruce knew it was pointless to tell Steve Rogers that he didn’t have to help anyone. Instead, he swirled the razor in the water.
“I don’t want to be a weapon. But I don’t want the serum to go to waste, either. It wouldn’t be just.”
“It’s your body,” said Bruce, scraping the razor down the other side of his lip.
When Steve didn’t say anything, Bruce glanced over. Steve wasn’t frowning. He just looked thoughtful, big arms crossed over one another, legs spread out casually. He started thrumming his fingers against a bicep. “Kasule doesn’t like me,” he said, in a sudden turn of subject.
Bruce just shaved his other cheek. “The school principle?”
Steve nodded. “He’s spreading rumors about me. Trying to turn people against me.” He made a noise of disgust. “As though this were some kind of schoolyard rivalry.”
“And you think that that will work?”
“No. But it’s a sticky situation. I want him off the board. He won’t go. The other fat cats in the district benefit from his sleazy deals, so they’re not going to kick him out. It stinks.”
“Solomon says Kasule’s afraid of you.”
“I didn’t lift a finger to him-which is a lot more than can be said for Okello,” who must have been the boy. “But I may as well have. Every single one of them watched me build that church brick by brick. They know what I can do.”
The razor scraped along Bruce’s jaw. “Are you finished with the church, then?”
Steve ran a hand through his hair, fingers coming to rest on the back of his neck. “Almost.”
“Most of the people know you would never hurt them,” said Bruce.
“Does it really matter? They know that I could.”
Bruce didn’t say anything. Instead he rinsed the razor off, starting to wipe his face with the towel.
“You missed a spot,” said Steve.
Bruce wiped his face with the towel some more.
“Here,” Steve pointed to his chin. Then he stood up. “Let me-”
Bruce drew back. “I said I’m alright with sharp objects. I’m not alright with other people and sharp objects.”
“I just meant right here,” said Steve, pointing to the corner of Bruce’s jaw.
Feeling the roughness of the hair there, Bruce picked up the razor, and took care of the last patch.
“You look good,” said Steve. “Younger.”
“We can’t all be frozen in time.” Bruce started rinsing the razor again.
Steve smirked. “You do have a lot of gray.”
“Thanks, Rogers.” Bruce dried off the razor, then went to go toss the water out.
“Maybe Tony’s right,” said Steve, when Bruce closed the door and they were sealed back within the gray, unfocused light. “Maybe I’m just treading water, here. Not doing any real good.”
“You’ve done fine.”
“And then there’s you,” said Steve. His eyes were not unkind, but Bruce felt the tension ratchet up his shoulders.
“I told you I wasn’t here to do any good.”
“Tony was talking about you,” Steve said, “when he talked about genius going to waste.”
“He just didn’t want me to feel left out of the ridicule,” said Bruce. “Tony is very considerate in that way.”
“You don’t belong here,” said Steve. “You’re not a medical doctor. Even if you were, you could be curing diseases.”
Bruce didn’t look at him. “There’s a cure for cholera. Drink clean water. The cure for malaria is not getting bit.”
“Those aren’t cures. That’s prevention. Mister Stark was right about that, too. There’s so much technology, so much knowledge-so many good things in this world, and what do we use them for? Music and games and going to the moon.”
“So you’re not Buzz Aldrin,” said Bruce, mostly because he wanted Steve to stop.
“I just don’t understand why . . . we’ve come so far. We’ve done so much, but as far as I can tell . . . we haven’t actually made a difference.”
“Welcome to the world,” Bruce said.
“Thanks, Doctor Banner. That’s really appreciated.”
The thing about Steve Rogers’ sarcasm was that he didn’t sound sarcastic at all. He just sounded nice, which was awkward when you wanted to be a bastard to him. “I’m sorry, Steve,” said Bruce, because that was his default answer. “I’m sorry the world isn’t as you want it to be.”
“It could be, though.” Steve looked around the room, and then back at Bruce.
“It could be,” agreed Bruce. “It could be the way I want it. The way Tony wants it. The way the Avengers want it. You do realize that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Yes.” Steve tilted his head. “That doesn’t explain why you came here, though.”
“You mean, why aren’t I reinventing the toilet with Tony? Probably because he’d just talk a lot of shit.”
“Are you afraid of him?” Bruce opened his mouth, and Steve said, “Not Tony.”
Bruce shut his mouth.
“I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you that day,” said Steve, “but I did mean some of what I said. Doctor Banner, don’t you think it would be more fruitful to try to learn to control him? Because it’s going to happen one day, and you won’t be able to stop it. Don’t you think it would be better spending your time trying to make the world better than running all the time?”
Bruce wanted to fiddle with the razor, but realized that would be a really, really bad idea. Instead he kept touching his knuckles, and thinking about touching the razor, because that would be very delicate and precise-cleaning the blade, removing it, replacing it-it would help him concentrate.
“I’m trying to make the world better,” Bruce said, and didn’t touch the razor.
“You mean, by not letting the government have you, or by working on a cure?” When Bruce didn’t answer, Steve went on, “Don’t you think it-your condition, I mean-could be of use? In the end, don’t you think that you could do more good?”
Bruce looked at him. “You asked what Tony and I fought about,” was all he said.
Steve looked surprised. “I guess Mister Stark and I agree on something.”
Bruce shoved his hands into his pockets. “I guess.”
“I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Doctor Banner.”
“It sure sounds that way.”
“I’m not,” said Steve. “I’m speaking to you as a friend.”
“Interesting. That’s what he said.”
There was a silence; Bruce guessed Steve was startled again. He wouldn’t know; he wasn’t looking at him. Then Steve said, “I understand why you would think that Mister Stark was lying. Maybe he was. I’m not.”
“He wasn’t lying,” said Bruce.
“Oh,” said Steve. “Well, good.”
Finally, Bruce looked up again. “Listen, Steve. I’ve been trying to say this all along. I’m not a hero-with this thing inside me, I . . . I find it hard to believe that someone is not going to find a way to use what I am to destroy any attempt I make to do the right thing. That’s what Loki did. Or weren’t you paying attention?”
“I was paying attention. The Hulk saved Mister Stark’s life.”
“You’re just like him. The two of you-you know that? You think what you do is justified because you mean well.”
“The way I see it, meaning well is all you can do.”
“You can stay out of it,” said Bruce.
Steve shook his head. “There has to be more than that.”
Bruce turned away. “Let me know when you’ve found it.”
*
Asha, the girl with tuberculosis under Faridah’s care, died on a Tuesday.
When Bruce found out, he walked to the village. Esther told him where to find Steve.
He was in the church, which as far as Bruce could tell, was complete. The bricks were white-washed and there was wood paneling on the floor. There were even pews, and an altar in the front with nothing on it. Steve sat in the middle of one of the pews, his folded hands on the back of the pew in front of him, his head down.
Bruce walked down the aisle and sat down on the edge of the bench behind him.
After a while, Steve lifted his head. “People don’t really believe in God anymore,” he said, without his customary hello.
“You didn’t pay attention to this year’s election.”
Steve just kept looking at the altar. “When I talk about God, people think it’s quaint.”
“Not here,” said Bruce.
Steve snorted softly. “Folks believe in witchcraft here just as much as they believe that Christ died for their sins.”
“Faridah believes in God.”
Bruce could only see Steve in profile, but he saw his jaw go tight. “Look what good that did her.”
“Steve,” Bruce said, running his thumb over his fingers.
“I pray every day,” said Steve. “Sometimes, I don’t even know what for.”
Bruce looked up at the empty altar.
Bruce’s mother had been Italian, and very Catholic. She took Bruce to church when he was little, and even as a little kid, he had found the whole thing phenomenally stupid. By the age of six, he was spending Sundays dissecting everything the priest said for logical fallacies and internal inconsistency. He had stared up at the stained glass window behind the pulpit and deemed the sizes of the angels’ wings irrational. They might at least have attempted a little realism, had they really expected anyone to swallow this load of horseshit, because everyone knew that people didn’t glow like that.
After the accident, Bruce had come to appreciate some of the principles within Christianity, though never the framework. As for iconography, he preferred abstraction, rather than literal representations of things that weren’t real. But thinking about Steve, Bruce realized why those artists always painted on the halo. Good could be real-as real as stone and skin.
“I always used to know what I believed,” Steve said, looking at the altar too. “It’s not that easy, here.”
“I know what you believe,” said Bruce.
Steve laughed a little, didn’t turn around. “Really?”
“The strong should protect the weak. Do unto others. And the meek shall inherit the earth.”
“I feel like you just read that in a book somewhere,” said Steve, and he was teasing, except there was a heaviness there.
Pressing his lips together, Bruce looked down at his hands. “Does that matter?”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” said Steve. “Maybe if no one believes anything anymore, nothing matters.”
“Steve,” said Bruce, looking at the back of Steve’s neck. It was incredibly erect, head held high, short blond hairs in a tidy row along the back. Bruce tried again. “Steve, they don’t have to believe the story is true to get something from it; you’ve just gotta tell it well. Why do you think Fury named us the Avengers? Why do you think there’s merchandise?”
Steve inclined his head, not quite turning back to him. “Money.”
“That’s very twenty-first century of you. You’re catching on.”
“Maybe Mister Stark just wanted his invention to be an action figurine.”
“Maybe,” said Bruce. “But Tony-his whole capitalist scheme-the whole point is to sell a story. People believe in Iron Man.”
“They’ve seen him,” said Steve.
“You know they believe in more than that. All you have to do is tell a story, and tell it well. People will care.”
Finally turning to him all the way, Steve shook his head, the corner of his mouth turned down in a rueful smile. “I’m no good at selling myself, Doctor Banner. I’m terrible at embellishment.”
“You don’t have to,” said Bruce. “All you have to be is who you are.”
Steve frowned. “What if that’s not enough?”
“You’re Captain America in Uganda. If that doesn’t get people thinking about something bigger than themselves-” Bruce shrugged-“wear your suit, and dance a jig.”
Steve smiled a little. “I thought you didn’t believe in jigs.”
“I believe in this,” said Bruce. “This matters.”
The church with its white-washed walls mattered; Betty-pale and beautiful, with her red mouth and raven hair-mattered. Steve, with his big hands, boyish smile, and kind eyes mattered, and it was more than had mattered to Bruce in a very long time.
*
Irene and Solomon were married on a Sunday.
Irene wore her mother’s dress, made of lace, linen and white. Solomon, in his suit, clasped her hands inside Steve’s church, promised to love her and hold her, and then kissed the bride.
Outside there was a feast, a fire, and lots of dancing.
“I hate getting dressed up,” said Steve. “I do like weddings, though. Usually there’s a lot of food.”
“You don’t like the old women who want to dance with you, and the mothers crying?” Bruce asked.
Steve smiled. “That too.”
Bruce glanced at him. Apparently Steve’s version of dressed up was a white, short-sleeve button-down that somehow he had managed to make look pressed, and khaki slacks that were equally pristine. His hair was wet and parted very careful to the side in a way that didn’t at all suit him, and Bruce wore the same thing he always wore, since he basically had maybe five or six articles of clothing. “I was hoping you’d wear safari shorts,” said Bruce.
“You just want to look at my legs,” said Steve.
Bruce just shrugged. “So many people have seen me naked, I take retribution where I can.”
Steve clapped Bruce on the back; then thought better of it, and kept his arm there, slung around Bruce’s shoulders. In the distance, beyond the haze of smoke, a woman was singing, a man beside her playing a drum. Esther tipped her head back and laughed; the smell of smoked beef and spices filled the air. Muhindo danced with a tiny child, while Julius tried to rustle up a game of soccer. “Some things never change,” Steve said, looking around.
Bruce supposed that that was true.
*
The next time Bruce saw Steve, the kerfuffle with Kasule had mostly blown over. Kasule was a greedy man; a lot of people with official titles in Uganda were, but then again, so were a lot of people with official titles everywhere. Lots of things got lost between the cracks of bureaucracy and graft, but though politics was a little rougher around the edges here than some places, at the heart of things Bruce thought they were pretty much the same.
The villagers loved Steve, and didn’t love Kasule, so in the end no one believed Kasule’s wild accusations. He was eventually ousted from the position and a new principal was appointed, and Lillian began to get paid her school teacher wage again. The co-op Steve had started was already reaping benefits from the garden, and there was talk of another co-op forming to make women’s jewelry.
Bruce was teaching a class when Steve showed up again. Solomon and Irene had gone three days ago, making the class somewhat less interesting, but Bruce did his best. Steve sat in the back of the school house as he had done once before. He smiled when Bruce caught his eye, but otherwise, he looked rather pensive.
After the class was over, Bruce took off his glasses, and walked to the back of the classroom. Steve stood up, and they went outside.
“I thought about what you said,” said Steve.
“I’m starting to think I should be careful what I say around you.”
“You’re always careful about what you say.”
Bruce looked at him a little while. Steve looked just as neat and clean as he had at the wedding, a little more relaxed, maybe. His large hands were loose by his sides, white chickens scattering at his step down the red path. Bruce looked away. “Not always,” was all he said.
“I’m going back to the States,” Steve said.
“Okay.” Bruce watched the chickens. They were such awkward animals, and yet somehow seemed so bright and clean against the grass.
Steve was looking off into the distance as they walked. “I love my country, despite some terrible things it’s done.”
Bruce still didn’t look at him. “Maybe that’s the difference between you and me.”
“I love ‘My Country Tis Of Thee,’” said Steve. “I love “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” and the Emancipation Proclamation; I love the Empire State Building and Los Angeles. I even love the new things-Bill Gates’ brain and Oprah Winfrey’s conversations and I think I might even love Lady Gaga’s clothes. I love fireworks and corn and the Fourth of July.”
Bruce kept his eyes on his feet. “I never said you couldn’t love America, Steve.”
“You didn’t,” said Steve. Another chicken clucked into the grass. “Remember, you don’t actually form my thoughts, Doctor Banner,” Steve said gently. “I do.”
“I know.” Bruce shoved his hands in his pockets. Steve was just so open to listening; he took to heart anything everyone said. It was sometimes difficult to remember that underneath that open, generous exterior, there lay steel.
They walked a while, and the grass was wet; there had been a storm the night before. It had been a rollicking good one, plenty of thunder, but Bruce hadn’t had the heart to go out and see if he could measure gamma. Instead he’d stood outside and watched the lightning crack the sky, and tried to think of what kind of man he’d be, if he believed in God.
“You said my body was my own,” said Steve. “That’s the part I thought a lot about, because I decided that it’s not true.”
Bruce glanced up at him. Steve’s eyes were cast down toward his feet in front of him, and his eyelashes were golden like his hair. Bruce had certainly taken the time to appreciate all that strength leashed tight in him, but he wondered now how he had managed to miss that tiny, delicate soft detail.
“I’m six foot three,” said Steve eventually. “I can bench press thirteen hundred pounds, and I can run a mile in under three minutes. I need about three and a half hours of sleep a night, and sometimes, all I want to do is lie down and do nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Steve stopped. He could have no idea of what he looked like, standing there in the wet road, framed by the red dirt and tall green grass, sky as clear and pristine as starched cloth.
“I’m tired, Doctor Banner,” Steve said. “Not physically. I’m tired of this, of everything. But there are plenty of other people who can’t stop, just because they’re tired. There are plenty of other people who don’t have the choice to stop. And because I have this-all of this-” he gestured to his ridiculously well-proportioned body-“this-” he laid his hand over his heart, “I have to keep going. No one has the privileges I do. I have to make the most of them.”
“Good speech,” said Bruce.
Steve took his hand away from his heart.
“I meant it,” Bruce said quietly. “It was a good speech.”
“What I mean is,” said Steve, “I have to be a part of this world whether I like it or not. You do, too. You said it yourself-one day, someone will force you.”
“I’d rather that be on my own terms,” said Bruce.
“If you’re not careful,” said Steve, “it won’t be on your terms. It will be on his.”
Bruce pressed his lips together. He looked away, and when he looked back, just said, “Thirteen hundred pounds, really? I would have thought it would be more.”
Steve put his head to one side. “There’s a question I’ve always wanted to ask you. I never did, at first it was because it wasn’t my business. Later, it was because I consider you a friend.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t,” said Bruce.
“You have no idea how much I respect you, Doctor Banner.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” said Bruce, tension slowly curling from head to neck, right into the depths of his spine.
Steve nodded, looking grim. Then he said, “Did you ever think about what would happen if the radiation experiment didn’t work?”
The silence stretched out.
Out and out and out.
“I didn’t.” Bruce swallowed. “I didn’t think at all.”
“I don’t mean to judge you.” Steve’s eyes, Bruce realized, were piercing. Bruce had finally found a name for that incandescent blue. “I just thought that you might start thinking about it now.”
How dare you, Bruce wanted to say, because of course he’d thought of nothing else since the experiment had failed. Instead, Bruce said, “When you tell people about Uganda, don’t forget the elephants.”
“I won’t,” said Steve.
*
Additional Notes:
-For reference and ideas (especially the co-op, school, and safari), I used this book: The Peasants Come Last: A Memoir of the Peace Corps at Fifty, by J. Larry Brown. Brown was the Country Director of Peace Corps in Uganda for two and a half years. It is not about the Ugandan experience, obviously. It’s about Americans attempting to aid people in Uganda, and the ways in which that can be both wonderful and problematic.
-To learn more about global action on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, please visit UNAIDS
-The statistic Tony quotes to Steve in his email is as accurate as my research could determine: every twenty seconds, a child dies due to waterborne illness. Poop Creative and the World Toilet Organization are helpful websites where you can learn more. I saw Rose George, author of The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters give a lecture; she is a great speaker, and the book should prove an excellent overview. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are supporting a Reinvent the Toilet Challenge.
-I specifically didn’t name anyone on Tony’s “wanted” list, because after discussion with peers, I decided it wasn’t appropriate. If you would like to learn more, however, I strongly encourage research.
-While I did a lot of research to write this fic using sources above and plenty of others, it was by no means exhaustive. I tried to do this topic and this setting justice, but this should by no means be seen as accurate, realistic or prescriptive. If this fic has touched you even a little, please consider learning more about what I have tried so inadequately to address.
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.
Previous parts: 1 | 2
Before ending in a single river to empty into Egypt’s famous delta, the Nile River starts as tributaries, the Blue Nile and the White. The White Nile flows through Lake Victoria, on Uganda’s southeast border, and winds its way to Lake Kyoga. From there, it flows further north, where it must push through a seven meter gap to continue on its way to meet with Lake Albert.
From the bottom, Murchison Falls wasn’t exactly a spectacular sight. There were several little humps at the base that denied access to the highest falls, and the turn in the river somewhat obscured the view.
Steve and Bruce got on a boat manned by a man named Moses, who warned them against the crocodiles. Bruce thought Steve was going to make jokes about fighting crocodiles, too, but as it turned out Steve was too enamored of them. It rather surprised Bruce that Steve didn’t seem to be the camera-toting type, but perhaps it was a result of a rather over-developed sense of wonder. Snapping a photo maybe would have lessened it, somehow.
Still, taking pictures of Steve with a crocodile definitely crossed Bruce’s mind. Steve was practically Lewis to his Clark. Captain fucking Kirk to his Spock.
Sometimes, Bruce still couldn’t believe Steve was Captain America, the miracle of science, the great invention. He’d thought of Steve the way other people thought of light bulbs, internal combustion engines, penicillin, microchips, the Large Hadron Collider. Bruce looked at Steve now and didn’t think of any of those things. Steve looked like just a man, and Bruce felt something strange.
It was something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time for a thing that wasn’t a nuclear generator or a particular tenacious strand of DNA-it was admiration. Bruce whole-heartedly admired him, and for the longest time, he’d found human beings so very ugly.
Eschewing the requisite guide, Steve and Bruce got off the boat on the other side of the river, and made the hike up to the top of the falls. In the woods, they saw baboons, who bared their teeth and showed them their bare bottoms, and once or twice threw fruit from the trees. “They remind me of someone,” Steve said as they hiked.
“Us,” said Bruce, because they did.
Steve shook his head. “No. I’m taking about the way they walk-it’s a swagger, really. I know someone who walks that way, with his chest thrust out. I’m trying to think of who.” He thwacked some leaves with a machete. “Oh, I’ve got it. Tony Stark.”
Bruce waited for Steve to clear more of the brush (Indiana Jones, John Smith, John Henry). “You don’t like him?”
Steve grunted, hacking the vines. “I have no opinion of Tony Stark.”
“That sounds like an opinion.”
“I want to like him,” said Steve. “I’ve tried. Sometimes he’s really amenable to me liking him. Sometimes he seems to want the exact opposite.”
Bruce could have all kinds of thoughts about that. He probably did, but he wasn’t going to look at them. He tried not to think of Tony at all, when he could help it.
They walked the rest of the way in relative silence, but for the roar of the water beyond the jungle, and the calls of at least a hundred different species of bird. When they got to the top and saw the water, it was breath-taking.
Bruce hadn’t been awed by the elephants. He should have been awed by the elephants; he didn’t know what was wrong with him. Maybe he just didn’t have that gene; maybe he’d been in the wrong mood. Maybe he’d been distracted enough by Steve’s jeans and the fact that he was on safari, that he’d forgotten to be awed by the elephants; maybe it would just take a while to sink in.
But Bruce was awed by this. All the life-giving force and the death-dealing terror of the Nile was packed between these steep mighty rocks, and pouring in a thundering crash far below to the distant Earth, those ancient stones pummeled for millennia by the towering rush.
Bruce loved the Hubble Telescope. There was something about all that wealth of technology and knowledge packed into that single great machine and turned in one direction, aimed at that single point of the universe. There was something, too, about Steve-all that human strength and power condensed into this one individual, this miracle of ingenuity and biology, a graceful instrument of strength, but also of precision.
Facing the falls, Bruce could feel the spray. He could see rainbows dancing in the mist, and he thought: there is still so much to discover, because man had mastered this. He had learned how to take all this raw, unbridled power and direct it to just cause-not in this particular instance, but Bruce saw the falls, and thought of diverting rivers, of dams and hydraulic power.
If man could master this, he could master other things.
All of space and the human body, no matter how mutated, lay in wait for man’s unlimited power to know.
Steve said something, and Bruce looked over at him. “What?” Bruce yelled, over the roar.
Steve put his lips by Bruce’s ear. “I said, it’s humbling,” Steve yelled.
Bruce felt just the opposite.
*
On the way back home, Steve bought a box of mangos at a stand on the side of the road, stopped to take them to the school, and Bruce almost hulked out.
It happened just outside the school. Steve had gone up to take the crate inside, and was on his way back. There were lots of children outside, some of them playing soccer, some of the other little ones running around and chasing each other. Somewhere, three girls were singing:
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
It was just those lyrics, over and over. Bruce didn’t know whether Steve had taught it to them, or whether that was just something they sang here. Either way, the girls had forgotten the rest of the words.
Naturally, Steve stopped to talk to at least half the children. Bruce finally got out of the jeep, hips leaning against the side, watching Steve like he sometimes did. Steve was doing this thing where kids were sitting on his feet and he was walking with them clinging to him like koalas. Seeming to finally remember Bruce was there, he looked up, waved, then bent to tell the kids something. Reluctantly, they let him go, and Steve started walking back to the car.
Because Steve was turned toward him, and Bruce was facing the yard, Bruce noticed the disturbance first. One of the school teachers-not Lillian, the usual girl, but instead a man Bruce had seen once or twice before-was dragging a boy by the arm to the flat grass in the field. The teacher carried a cane.
‘Twas all in good fun, the girls finally sang, and then stopped. Steve turned around to see what had silenced them.
It didn’t really take any sort of thought to realize what Steve would do, though later Bruce would realize he might have had a different reaction. Steve saw what was going to happen, and started moving.
Bruce didn’t think about it at all either. He took two large steps and grabbed Steve by the arm. “Don’t,” he said.
“He’s going to,” Steve said, but didn’t even finish, just pulled out of Bruce’s grip.
The school teacher made the boy kneel on the lawn.
This time, Bruce moved in front of Steve. “You can’t do this,” he said, but Steve could, because he just brushed past him, as though Bruce wasn’t even there. He had eyes for nothing except that child in the yard.
The cane came down; Steve got closer, and Bruce could feel the ripple under his skin. Jogging after Steve, Bruce grabbed him by the arm again, hard enough to pull him around. “You better not,” Bruce said, rather calmly, considering, “or I’ll get angry.”
Steve was on a mission, but that stopped him. “Doctor Banner,” Steve said, and his eyes narrowed.
Bruce, feeling his hands tighten into fists, said, “Let’s go.”
Steve glanced at him, then back at the school yard. Bruce had come to think of Steve as a warm, compassionate man, but when Steve looked at that school teacher, all of that seemed gone. In its place was coldness, and there was something uncanny about that too, something unnerving. Somehow Bruce had managed to forget that Steve was a warrior-and here he was; this was it. This man had killed people too.
Bruce felt his eyes go hot and thought, he could stop this. “Right now,” said Bruce.
Steve’s jaw clenched, and for a moment, he wavered. Then at last, decision made, his hand descended firmly on Bruce’s bicep, and he turned him around. Then he started walking toward the jeep.
The problem was the boy was wailing now and Bruce totally could have ripped that school teacher’s head off. Bruce could see absolutely no way in which there was a problem with that, since he wasn’t going to do it. He just totally could have.
Steve’s hand tightened then, and he was pushing him. When they got to the jeep he didn’t even say anything, just opened the door and hauled Bruce into the passenger side, and Bruce decided right about then he didn’t like being manhandled. Poor fucking Steve. He just wanted to do the right thing.
That fucking kid was still fucking screaming.
Pop goes the weasel.
Steve revved the engine, and then they were pulling. A couple of the kids watched them go. It was totally cool, and everything was going to be fine. Sure, Steve could’ve taken that cane and showed that teacher just what he could do with it, but the teacher would have been angry, and then, who knew, Bruce might’ve smashed his face in. He hadn’t, so that was . . . friendly of him.
Except how Bruce could still hear that goddamn screaming and Steve, so fucking righteous, was sitting there all clenched and stiff with his foot clamped down on the gas like he couldn’t fucking stop for a single fucking bump, as thought that might infringe upon his fucking noble rage-
But everything was really alright. He could not stop hating them-
That fucking teacher-
Fucking Steve, such a goody two-shoes-
Dad, the belt, that crack in the kitchen tile-
The goddamn fucking bumps-
-but Bruce could clench his jaw, and he’d found that numbed his hearing a bit. He could unfocus his eyes, and he found that kept him from seeing red. He could clench his fists so tightly that his fingers ached and slowly, oh so slowly, uncurl his fingers one by one. Big deep breaths, diaphragm and up, in out in out in out, close his eyes and breathe. Curl his toes, unclench his jaw. Open his throat way up in the back so it could scream, relax his shoulders. Keep going and going and going, muscle by muscle, until he could hear himself think again, and that thought was: okay okay okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. It’s going to be okay.
There was a reason why cultural interference was a bad idea.
There was a reason why he should not be angry with Steve.
There was a reason why he shouldn’t kill his father: Dad was already dead.
Here was Bruce’s secret: it was perfectly alright to feel angry. It was not okay to do anything about it.
“You’re a coward,” that was what Tony had said, and Bruce had been alright with that. He’d been fine with that, because Iron Man and the Hulk and Thor and even Captain America, they were weapons, and even if Tony was alright with using them, Bruce couldn’t be. He could never be.
And if it wasn’t for these fucking bumps-
“Slow down.” Bruce tried to say it in a normal way, but it came out rather ragged.
Steve’s jaw ticked, and he immediately slowed down.
They drove for a long time, back across the barren savannah, the way they’d come. Bruce kept breathing deeply, and thought: this way, there had been elephants. Elephants were tremendous beings of epic proportions, and yet they could be very gentle. They ate plants and cared for their young, and were very social animals. For centuries, men had hunted them for their ivory, and Thomas Edison killed one with electricity once, just to show what alternating current could do.
Bruce had seen one in a circus when he was seven. He’d touched it. It had been warm.
Steve stopped the jeep, got out. Slammed the door shut a little harder than was necessary, but when he walked off a few feet away to stand farther down the road, he didn’t do anything but jam his hands inside his pockets. The lines of his back were tight and strong. His head bowed down, the sun arcing down toward west, as though unable to bear his gaze.
After a while, Bruce got out of the jeep and went to stand beside him. There wasn’t anyone on the road, and the trees over in the north looked like low dark clouds with legs. The grasshoppers clicked in low tones in the grass, and Bruce said softly, “I’m sorry.”
Steve looked down at him, the yellow sun dimly reflected in his face. “Are you alright?”
“I won’t bust,” said Bruce.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Steve said, tone clipped. “I’m going back to the school.” He turned back to the jeep.
“Wait a minute.” Steve turned back, and Bruce licked his lips. “You,” he began, then trailed off.
“You said you were alright,” said Steve. He looked like he was strung as tightly as one of Barton’s bows.
“They had corporal punishment back in your day,” Bruce said.
Steve’s mouth went tight. “I’m sorry?”
Of course they’d had corporal punishment in Steve’s day. They’d had more of it. That was sort of the point, but somehow with the way that Steve was looking at him, Bruce felt awful making said point. He pressed on anyway. “It’s accepted in this culture,” he said. “That is, it’s against the law, but it’s commonly practiced in-”
“It’s not acceptable in any culture.” Steve’s eyes were about as cold as the ice they’d cut him out of.
“I know that,” Bruce said gently.
“Then excuse me, why are we having this conversation?”
“Steve, you can’t just . . .”
Steve waited. When Bruce didn’t finish, Steve took a step closer. “Bullshit.”
“Steve,” Bruce said, and didn’t really know whether it was a protest or a warning. Something inside him was thrumming.
“I said, bullshit,” said Steve. “You could do so much; you could be so much, and you don’t. You sit there wallowing, thinking about so many things you can’t do until there are a thousand things you won’t do. And the one time you decide to do something-the one time-it’s to stop me from doing the right thing?” He took a step closer, until he was right in Bruce’s face. “How dare you?”
“You’re right.” Bruce looked up at him. “I don’t like you when you’re angry.”
“You want have at it?” said Steve. “Let’s have at it. Right now. You and me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Bruce.
“Him and me,” said Steve.
Pressing his lips together, Bruce finally looked away. “I’ve been thinking about the elephants.”
“Doctor Banner.” Steve’s voice was strained.
“I’m really glad I got to see those.” On this lonely road, it seemed as though there were little in the world besides the sun, the sky, the road and the jeep. When Bruce listened, he could hear the grasshoppers again; when his eyes sought them out, he could see the trees. Somewhere underground there were mole-rats building burrows; there were ants and other things. Somewhere in the trees there were birds and monkeys; somewhere there were elephants.
“Doctor Banner,” Steve said again, his voice more even.
Bruce turned back, and Steve’s eyes had melted into warmth.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Steve said.
“I know,” said Bruce. “I’m sorry.”
“They did have that in my time,” said Steve. “I saw it happen. It happened to me. Before, I was never strong enough to do anything about it, but it doesn’t make a difference. The only difference is that now I can actually stop those who would hurt others who are weaker. I’m strong enough to do that now.”
Bruce swallowed. “I know,” he said again.
“You don’t have to agree,” said Steve.
Bruce thought about trying to discuss why it was not a good idea for Steve to exert his authority over someone else in a society that was not his own, but then again, they’d already discussed it. “Alright,” said Bruce.
Steve nodded, the way that soldiers did, and said, “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
“You’re bad at losing your temper,” said Bruce. “Sometime, remind me to show you how it’s done.”
“Not many things make me very angry,” said Steve. “Some things do, though.”
They got into the jeep. Steve revved the engine again, and turned the vehicle around. The savannah began to shoot past, beige and dry, dust kicking up in the road. Bruce knew that mulberries grew in Africa, but he kept thinking of the poem that went: Here we go ‘round the prickly pear. Here on this desolate road, a thousand things could have happened, but nothing had. Somehow it almost seemed worse.
The poem ended:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
*
Three days later, Bruce hadn’t heard from Steve, and Solomon came over to his cottage. Solomon had asked Irene to marry him, and they had announced their plan to move to Kampala so they could go to school and find work. Solomon had come to ask Bruce to look at his résumé. Bruce went over it with him, and they talked about the future. Bruce thought Solomon would make a fine doctor.
“Thank you,” said Solomon. “I think that you would make a fine doctor too.”
Bruce’s mouth twisted. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You never acted like you were going to stay.” Solomon was a powerfully built young man with sharp eyes and prominent ears. His head was shaved and he often wore a smile, but he wasn’t smiling now. “Captain Rogers didn’t make friends with the school principal,” he said, after a while.
Bruce looked down at Solomon’s résumé, took off his glasses. He guessed the principal was the man with the cane. “I suppose he didn’t,” Bruce said.
“The principal hasn’t paid Miss Lillian in over three months,” said Solomon. “Captain Rogers didn’t like that either.”
“I suppose he wouldn’t,” was all Bruce said.
“Now the people in the village are saying Captain Rogers will make the principle pay,” said Solomon, “and the principal is saying that Captain Rogers is stealing from the people by taking the bank loan for the garden.”
“Steve wouldn’t take a diamond ring out of a garbage can,” said Bruce.
“Everybody knows that, but that is what the principal says.” Solomon tilted his head. “What do you think?”
“I don’t.” Looking down, Bruce started fiddling with his glasses. “I don’t have any opinion.”
“You don’t think Captain Rogers should make the principal pay?”
“I don’t think it’s any of my business.”
“I think the principal, he’s afraid of Captain Rogers.”
“Steve would never hurt anyone,” Bruce lied.
“You don’t think so?” Solomon raised his brows. “Captain Rogers sure lets us know he’s mighty strong.”
Looking down, Bruce found his glasses in his fist again. He switched them to the other fist. He put them down. “He would never hurt anyone unless he has to,” said Bruce.
“Ah,” said Solomon. “When he has to.”
Bruce shook his head. “Steve would be appalled at the idea of anyone here seeing him as a threat. He would never hurt anyone here; he doesn’t-” He stopped himself.
“He doesn’t have to.” Solomon’s voice was quiet.
Bruce looked up. “Steve would never fight anyone who wasn’t his physical equal.”
“And we are puny.” Solomon smiled wryly. “Professor, I understand.”
Bruce shook his head again. “He doesn’t look at it that way. He doesn’t see himself as superior.”
“Of course not.” Solomon kept his easy smile. “He is Captain Rogers. Quite humble.”
Looking at the glasses-somehow in his fist once again-Bruce said, “He’s just trying to do what’s right.”
Solomon’s voice was still soft. “I think that for a century, white men have come to my country to do what’s right. Somehow they think they know that better than we. Of course, before that, they came to my country to do what’s wrong. It’s an improvement, I suppose.”
Bruce’s fist tightened. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry? You come, you pay your rent, you mind your own business. No problem. I plan to be a tourist myself someday.” The wry smile was playing on Solomon’s lips.
“Tourist,” said Bruce, and played with the glasses some more.
“Yes. Irene will become a great physicist, world renowned, and we will visit the great Doctor Banner in New York.”
“Why would I be in New York?”
Solomon just kept smiling. “You are not an Avenger, then?”
Bruce’s lips twisted in a return smile, not quite mirthful. “You know.”
“You think we don’t see the world news, because we are in a remote part of the country.”
“No. Well.” Bruce’s lips twisted further. “I look a little different than I do on the news.”
“Smaller,” Solomon suggested.
“Just trying to fit in.”
Solomon just laughed.
*
“Come in,” Bruce said about a week later, when there was a knock on his door.
“Hello, Doct-you’re shaving,” said Steve.
“Stranger things have happened.” Bruce finished spreading on the shaving cream, and dipped his razor into the bowl of water in front of him. He’d seen Steve a couple times since Steve had driven him away from the school yard. Bruce thought that they were okay, but they hadn’t really talked about it.
“What’s the momentous occasion?” Steve asked.
“It itched,” said Bruce, and pulled the razor down the side of his cheek.
For a moment, Steve just stood there in the shadow of the door, while Bruce stood over the bowl of water and carefully moved the razor over his face. “Why are you doing that without a mirror?” Steve asked at last.
“I don’t have one,” said Bruce. He wasn’t going to tell him that he didn’t like mirrors.
“You could hurt yourself,” said Steve.
“I’ve done it before.”
“So I’ve heard.” Steve didn’t sound happy about it.
Bruce rinsed the razor again. “Trust me. I only plan on a minor transformation.”
“You mean I just need to worry about guns.”
Steve obviously remembered what Bruce had told them in the helicarrier. Bruce didn’t like it, but his hand moved steadily over his chin. “Then again,” he said, tone just as steady, “you may want to watch it. I am holding a sharp object relatively close to my neck.”
“You don’t want to talk about it.”
“Not particularly.” Bruce rinsed the razor.
“Alright.” Steve sat down, settling into Bruce’s line of sight. Bruce looked at the wall even though there wasn’t any mirror. “There was something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Steve said.
Bruce glanced at him then. Steve’s expression was pensive, thoughtful eyes watching Bruce’s hands. Bruce looked away. He didn’t like the serious note in Steve’s voice, and he had been expecting Steve to want to talk about what had happened.
“I thought a lot about what Mister Stark said,” Steve went on.
“You don’t have to listen to Tony.” Bruce put the razor in the water.
“I know I don’t,” said Steve. “That doesn’t mean I can’t.” He watched as Bruce brought the razor down over his upper lip. “I’ve just been thinking about what I’m doing here.”
Bruce knew it was pointless to tell Steve Rogers that he didn’t have to help anyone. Instead, he swirled the razor in the water.
“I don’t want to be a weapon. But I don’t want the serum to go to waste, either. It wouldn’t be just.”
“It’s your body,” said Bruce, scraping the razor down the other side of his lip.
When Steve didn’t say anything, Bruce glanced over. Steve wasn’t frowning. He just looked thoughtful, big arms crossed over one another, legs spread out casually. He started thrumming his fingers against a bicep. “Kasule doesn’t like me,” he said, in a sudden turn of subject.
Bruce just shaved his other cheek. “The school principle?”
Steve nodded. “He’s spreading rumors about me. Trying to turn people against me.” He made a noise of disgust. “As though this were some kind of schoolyard rivalry.”
“And you think that that will work?”
“No. But it’s a sticky situation. I want him off the board. He won’t go. The other fat cats in the district benefit from his sleazy deals, so they’re not going to kick him out. It stinks.”
“Solomon says Kasule’s afraid of you.”
“I didn’t lift a finger to him-which is a lot more than can be said for Okello,” who must have been the boy. “But I may as well have. Every single one of them watched me build that church brick by brick. They know what I can do.”
The razor scraped along Bruce’s jaw. “Are you finished with the church, then?”
Steve ran a hand through his hair, fingers coming to rest on the back of his neck. “Almost.”
“Most of the people know you would never hurt them,” said Bruce.
“Does it really matter? They know that I could.”
Bruce didn’t say anything. Instead he rinsed the razor off, starting to wipe his face with the towel.
“You missed a spot,” said Steve.
Bruce wiped his face with the towel some more.
“Here,” Steve pointed to his chin. Then he stood up. “Let me-”
Bruce drew back. “I said I’m alright with sharp objects. I’m not alright with other people and sharp objects.”
“I just meant right here,” said Steve, pointing to the corner of Bruce’s jaw.
Feeling the roughness of the hair there, Bruce picked up the razor, and took care of the last patch.
“You look good,” said Steve. “Younger.”
“We can’t all be frozen in time.” Bruce started rinsing the razor again.
Steve smirked. “You do have a lot of gray.”
“Thanks, Rogers.” Bruce dried off the razor, then went to go toss the water out.
“Maybe Tony’s right,” said Steve, when Bruce closed the door and they were sealed back within the gray, unfocused light. “Maybe I’m just treading water, here. Not doing any real good.”
“You’ve done fine.”
“And then there’s you,” said Steve. His eyes were not unkind, but Bruce felt the tension ratchet up his shoulders.
“I told you I wasn’t here to do any good.”
“Tony was talking about you,” Steve said, “when he talked about genius going to waste.”
“He just didn’t want me to feel left out of the ridicule,” said Bruce. “Tony is very considerate in that way.”
“You don’t belong here,” said Steve. “You’re not a medical doctor. Even if you were, you could be curing diseases.”
Bruce didn’t look at him. “There’s a cure for cholera. Drink clean water. The cure for malaria is not getting bit.”
“Those aren’t cures. That’s prevention. Mister Stark was right about that, too. There’s so much technology, so much knowledge-so many good things in this world, and what do we use them for? Music and games and going to the moon.”
“So you’re not Buzz Aldrin,” said Bruce, mostly because he wanted Steve to stop.
“I just don’t understand why . . . we’ve come so far. We’ve done so much, but as far as I can tell . . . we haven’t actually made a difference.”
“Welcome to the world,” Bruce said.
“Thanks, Doctor Banner. That’s really appreciated.”
The thing about Steve Rogers’ sarcasm was that he didn’t sound sarcastic at all. He just sounded nice, which was awkward when you wanted to be a bastard to him. “I’m sorry, Steve,” said Bruce, because that was his default answer. “I’m sorry the world isn’t as you want it to be.”
“It could be, though.” Steve looked around the room, and then back at Bruce.
“It could be,” agreed Bruce. “It could be the way I want it. The way Tony wants it. The way the Avengers want it. You do realize that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Yes.” Steve tilted his head. “That doesn’t explain why you came here, though.”
“You mean, why aren’t I reinventing the toilet with Tony? Probably because he’d just talk a lot of shit.”
“Are you afraid of him?” Bruce opened his mouth, and Steve said, “Not Tony.”
Bruce shut his mouth.
“I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you that day,” said Steve, “but I did mean some of what I said. Doctor Banner, don’t you think it would be more fruitful to try to learn to control him? Because it’s going to happen one day, and you won’t be able to stop it. Don’t you think it would be better spending your time trying to make the world better than running all the time?”
Bruce wanted to fiddle with the razor, but realized that would be a really, really bad idea. Instead he kept touching his knuckles, and thinking about touching the razor, because that would be very delicate and precise-cleaning the blade, removing it, replacing it-it would help him concentrate.
“I’m trying to make the world better,” Bruce said, and didn’t touch the razor.
“You mean, by not letting the government have you, or by working on a cure?” When Bruce didn’t answer, Steve went on, “Don’t you think it-your condition, I mean-could be of use? In the end, don’t you think that you could do more good?”
Bruce looked at him. “You asked what Tony and I fought about,” was all he said.
Steve looked surprised. “I guess Mister Stark and I agree on something.”
Bruce shoved his hands into his pockets. “I guess.”
“I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Doctor Banner.”
“It sure sounds that way.”
“I’m not,” said Steve. “I’m speaking to you as a friend.”
“Interesting. That’s what he said.”
There was a silence; Bruce guessed Steve was startled again. He wouldn’t know; he wasn’t looking at him. Then Steve said, “I understand why you would think that Mister Stark was lying. Maybe he was. I’m not.”
“He wasn’t lying,” said Bruce.
“Oh,” said Steve. “Well, good.”
Finally, Bruce looked up again. “Listen, Steve. I’ve been trying to say this all along. I’m not a hero-with this thing inside me, I . . . I find it hard to believe that someone is not going to find a way to use what I am to destroy any attempt I make to do the right thing. That’s what Loki did. Or weren’t you paying attention?”
“I was paying attention. The Hulk saved Mister Stark’s life.”
“You’re just like him. The two of you-you know that? You think what you do is justified because you mean well.”
“The way I see it, meaning well is all you can do.”
“You can stay out of it,” said Bruce.
Steve shook his head. “There has to be more than that.”
Bruce turned away. “Let me know when you’ve found it.”
*
Asha, the girl with tuberculosis under Faridah’s care, died on a Tuesday.
When Bruce found out, he walked to the village. Esther told him where to find Steve.
He was in the church, which as far as Bruce could tell, was complete. The bricks were white-washed and there was wood paneling on the floor. There were even pews, and an altar in the front with nothing on it. Steve sat in the middle of one of the pews, his folded hands on the back of the pew in front of him, his head down.
Bruce walked down the aisle and sat down on the edge of the bench behind him.
After a while, Steve lifted his head. “People don’t really believe in God anymore,” he said, without his customary hello.
“You didn’t pay attention to this year’s election.”
Steve just kept looking at the altar. “When I talk about God, people think it’s quaint.”
“Not here,” said Bruce.
Steve snorted softly. “Folks believe in witchcraft here just as much as they believe that Christ died for their sins.”
“Faridah believes in God.”
Bruce could only see Steve in profile, but he saw his jaw go tight. “Look what good that did her.”
“Steve,” Bruce said, running his thumb over his fingers.
“I pray every day,” said Steve. “Sometimes, I don’t even know what for.”
Bruce looked up at the empty altar.
Bruce’s mother had been Italian, and very Catholic. She took Bruce to church when he was little, and even as a little kid, he had found the whole thing phenomenally stupid. By the age of six, he was spending Sundays dissecting everything the priest said for logical fallacies and internal inconsistency. He had stared up at the stained glass window behind the pulpit and deemed the sizes of the angels’ wings irrational. They might at least have attempted a little realism, had they really expected anyone to swallow this load of horseshit, because everyone knew that people didn’t glow like that.
After the accident, Bruce had come to appreciate some of the principles within Christianity, though never the framework. As for iconography, he preferred abstraction, rather than literal representations of things that weren’t real. But thinking about Steve, Bruce realized why those artists always painted on the halo. Good could be real-as real as stone and skin.
“I always used to know what I believed,” Steve said, looking at the altar too. “It’s not that easy, here.”
“I know what you believe,” said Bruce.
Steve laughed a little, didn’t turn around. “Really?”
“The strong should protect the weak. Do unto others. And the meek shall inherit the earth.”
“I feel like you just read that in a book somewhere,” said Steve, and he was teasing, except there was a heaviness there.
Pressing his lips together, Bruce looked down at his hands. “Does that matter?”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” said Steve. “Maybe if no one believes anything anymore, nothing matters.”
“Steve,” said Bruce, looking at the back of Steve’s neck. It was incredibly erect, head held high, short blond hairs in a tidy row along the back. Bruce tried again. “Steve, they don’t have to believe the story is true to get something from it; you’ve just gotta tell it well. Why do you think Fury named us the Avengers? Why do you think there’s merchandise?”
Steve inclined his head, not quite turning back to him. “Money.”
“That’s very twenty-first century of you. You’re catching on.”
“Maybe Mister Stark just wanted his invention to be an action figurine.”
“Maybe,” said Bruce. “But Tony-his whole capitalist scheme-the whole point is to sell a story. People believe in Iron Man.”
“They’ve seen him,” said Steve.
“You know they believe in more than that. All you have to do is tell a story, and tell it well. People will care.”
Finally turning to him all the way, Steve shook his head, the corner of his mouth turned down in a rueful smile. “I’m no good at selling myself, Doctor Banner. I’m terrible at embellishment.”
“You don’t have to,” said Bruce. “All you have to be is who you are.”
Steve frowned. “What if that’s not enough?”
“You’re Captain America in Uganda. If that doesn’t get people thinking about something bigger than themselves-” Bruce shrugged-“wear your suit, and dance a jig.”
Steve smiled a little. “I thought you didn’t believe in jigs.”
“I believe in this,” said Bruce. “This matters.”
The church with its white-washed walls mattered; Betty-pale and beautiful, with her red mouth and raven hair-mattered. Steve, with his big hands, boyish smile, and kind eyes mattered, and it was more than had mattered to Bruce in a very long time.
*
Irene and Solomon were married on a Sunday.
Irene wore her mother’s dress, made of lace, linen and white. Solomon, in his suit, clasped her hands inside Steve’s church, promised to love her and hold her, and then kissed the bride.
Outside there was a feast, a fire, and lots of dancing.
“I hate getting dressed up,” said Steve. “I do like weddings, though. Usually there’s a lot of food.”
“You don’t like the old women who want to dance with you, and the mothers crying?” Bruce asked.
Steve smiled. “That too.”
Bruce glanced at him. Apparently Steve’s version of dressed up was a white, short-sleeve button-down that somehow he had managed to make look pressed, and khaki slacks that were equally pristine. His hair was wet and parted very careful to the side in a way that didn’t at all suit him, and Bruce wore the same thing he always wore, since he basically had maybe five or six articles of clothing. “I was hoping you’d wear safari shorts,” said Bruce.
“You just want to look at my legs,” said Steve.
Bruce just shrugged. “So many people have seen me naked, I take retribution where I can.”
Steve clapped Bruce on the back; then thought better of it, and kept his arm there, slung around Bruce’s shoulders. In the distance, beyond the haze of smoke, a woman was singing, a man beside her playing a drum. Esther tipped her head back and laughed; the smell of smoked beef and spices filled the air. Muhindo danced with a tiny child, while Julius tried to rustle up a game of soccer. “Some things never change,” Steve said, looking around.
Bruce supposed that that was true.
*
The next time Bruce saw Steve, the kerfuffle with Kasule had mostly blown over. Kasule was a greedy man; a lot of people with official titles in Uganda were, but then again, so were a lot of people with official titles everywhere. Lots of things got lost between the cracks of bureaucracy and graft, but though politics was a little rougher around the edges here than some places, at the heart of things Bruce thought they were pretty much the same.
The villagers loved Steve, and didn’t love Kasule, so in the end no one believed Kasule’s wild accusations. He was eventually ousted from the position and a new principal was appointed, and Lillian began to get paid her school teacher wage again. The co-op Steve had started was already reaping benefits from the garden, and there was talk of another co-op forming to make women’s jewelry.
Bruce was teaching a class when Steve showed up again. Solomon and Irene had gone three days ago, making the class somewhat less interesting, but Bruce did his best. Steve sat in the back of the school house as he had done once before. He smiled when Bruce caught his eye, but otherwise, he looked rather pensive.
After the class was over, Bruce took off his glasses, and walked to the back of the classroom. Steve stood up, and they went outside.
“I thought about what you said,” said Steve.
“I’m starting to think I should be careful what I say around you.”
“You’re always careful about what you say.”
Bruce looked at him a little while. Steve looked just as neat and clean as he had at the wedding, a little more relaxed, maybe. His large hands were loose by his sides, white chickens scattering at his step down the red path. Bruce looked away. “Not always,” was all he said.
“I’m going back to the States,” Steve said.
“Okay.” Bruce watched the chickens. They were such awkward animals, and yet somehow seemed so bright and clean against the grass.
Steve was looking off into the distance as they walked. “I love my country, despite some terrible things it’s done.”
Bruce still didn’t look at him. “Maybe that’s the difference between you and me.”
“I love ‘My Country Tis Of Thee,’” said Steve. “I love “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” and the Emancipation Proclamation; I love the Empire State Building and Los Angeles. I even love the new things-Bill Gates’ brain and Oprah Winfrey’s conversations and I think I might even love Lady Gaga’s clothes. I love fireworks and corn and the Fourth of July.”
Bruce kept his eyes on his feet. “I never said you couldn’t love America, Steve.”
“You didn’t,” said Steve. Another chicken clucked into the grass. “Remember, you don’t actually form my thoughts, Doctor Banner,” Steve said gently. “I do.”
“I know.” Bruce shoved his hands in his pockets. Steve was just so open to listening; he took to heart anything everyone said. It was sometimes difficult to remember that underneath that open, generous exterior, there lay steel.
They walked a while, and the grass was wet; there had been a storm the night before. It had been a rollicking good one, plenty of thunder, but Bruce hadn’t had the heart to go out and see if he could measure gamma. Instead he’d stood outside and watched the lightning crack the sky, and tried to think of what kind of man he’d be, if he believed in God.
“You said my body was my own,” said Steve. “That’s the part I thought a lot about, because I decided that it’s not true.”
Bruce glanced up at him. Steve’s eyes were cast down toward his feet in front of him, and his eyelashes were golden like his hair. Bruce had certainly taken the time to appreciate all that strength leashed tight in him, but he wondered now how he had managed to miss that tiny, delicate soft detail.
“I’m six foot three,” said Steve eventually. “I can bench press thirteen hundred pounds, and I can run a mile in under three minutes. I need about three and a half hours of sleep a night, and sometimes, all I want to do is lie down and do nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Steve stopped. He could have no idea of what he looked like, standing there in the wet road, framed by the red dirt and tall green grass, sky as clear and pristine as starched cloth.
“I’m tired, Doctor Banner,” Steve said. “Not physically. I’m tired of this, of everything. But there are plenty of other people who can’t stop, just because they’re tired. There are plenty of other people who don’t have the choice to stop. And because I have this-all of this-” he gestured to his ridiculously well-proportioned body-“this-” he laid his hand over his heart, “I have to keep going. No one has the privileges I do. I have to make the most of them.”
“Good speech,” said Bruce.
Steve took his hand away from his heart.
“I meant it,” Bruce said quietly. “It was a good speech.”
“What I mean is,” said Steve, “I have to be a part of this world whether I like it or not. You do, too. You said it yourself-one day, someone will force you.”
“I’d rather that be on my own terms,” said Bruce.
“If you’re not careful,” said Steve, “it won’t be on your terms. It will be on his.”
Bruce pressed his lips together. He looked away, and when he looked back, just said, “Thirteen hundred pounds, really? I would have thought it would be more.”
Steve put his head to one side. “There’s a question I’ve always wanted to ask you. I never did, at first it was because it wasn’t my business. Later, it was because I consider you a friend.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t,” said Bruce.
“You have no idea how much I respect you, Doctor Banner.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” said Bruce, tension slowly curling from head to neck, right into the depths of his spine.
Steve nodded, looking grim. Then he said, “Did you ever think about what would happen if the radiation experiment didn’t work?”
The silence stretched out.
Out and out and out.
“I didn’t.” Bruce swallowed. “I didn’t think at all.”
“I don’t mean to judge you.” Steve’s eyes, Bruce realized, were piercing. Bruce had finally found a name for that incandescent blue. “I just thought that you might start thinking about it now.”
How dare you, Bruce wanted to say, because of course he’d thought of nothing else since the experiment had failed. Instead, Bruce said, “When you tell people about Uganda, don’t forget the elephants.”
“I won’t,” said Steve.
*
Additional Notes:
-For reference and ideas (especially the co-op, school, and safari), I used this book: The Peasants Come Last: A Memoir of the Peace Corps at Fifty, by J. Larry Brown. Brown was the Country Director of Peace Corps in Uganda for two and a half years. It is not about the Ugandan experience, obviously. It’s about Americans attempting to aid people in Uganda, and the ways in which that can be both wonderful and problematic.
-To learn more about global action on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, please visit UNAIDS
-The statistic Tony quotes to Steve in his email is as accurate as my research could determine: every twenty seconds, a child dies due to waterborne illness. Poop Creative and the World Toilet Organization are helpful websites where you can learn more. I saw Rose George, author of The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters give a lecture; she is a great speaker, and the book should prove an excellent overview. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are supporting a Reinvent the Toilet Challenge.
-I specifically didn’t name anyone on Tony’s “wanted” list, because after discussion with peers, I decided it wasn’t appropriate. If you would like to learn more, however, I strongly encourage research.
-While I did a lot of research to write this fic using sources above and plenty of others, it was by no means exhaustive. I tried to do this topic and this setting justice, but this should by no means be seen as accurate, realistic or prescriptive. If this fic has touched you even a little, please consider learning more about what I have tried so inadequately to address.