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I WAS MADE TO HIT IN AMERICAAAA
He should know not to go out at night by himself. Not because he's in any danger - Captain America in New York City on a less-than-average day doesn't have much to worry about. But because, almost without exception, he gets lost. Steve tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and squints up at the buildings around him, ignoring the college student who staggers by, stops to stare at him, and bursts out laughing before moving on.
He's used to that, too, by now. Apparently dressing conservatively these days isn't a reflection of care for the resources of the country, or a side-effect of living life as a soldier for two years - it's just "dorky." At least he doesn't feel like someone's taped a sign to his back, not since he asked Darcy - Agent Lewis - why he kept getting that reaction.
Of course the fact that she had to explain what 'Because you're a dork' meant didn't really help his... street cred. He chuckles to himself, only a little ironic, at managing to use both terms in one train of thought.
A few streets later he's getting very confused. Usually he's able to find at least one familiar street or landmark to point him in the general right direction, at least until he finds a cab to get him the rest of the way back to the mansion. He's done this enough in the months he's been here that his assigned SHIELD shadows don't pop a vein unless he's not back by morning - in this case, though, that's probably working against him.
Finally Steve sighs and digs into his pocket to pull out his cellular phone. He looks at it for a moment, smiling to himself and wondering what Howard would make of all this. Tiny phones with tinier batteries and communicators and jets that don't need runways to take off.
Well, for all Steve knows, Howard invented most of it. He still hasn't been able to bring himself to look at history texts to see how his friends lived out their lives. There's something too much like admitting he's never going to see them again in doing that.
He flips the phone open gingerly, poking the tiny buttons with his pinky because he's not sure how else to manage the thing, and dials in what he's fairly sure is Darcy's number. Agent Lewis's number. He could try calling someone else, but she's friendly, in her own way. She doesn't treat him like a loaded gun waiting to be pointed at the next Big Bad Guy.
Steve lifts the phone to his ear with a frown. "Uh. Hello?"
He's used to that, too, by now. Apparently dressing conservatively these days isn't a reflection of care for the resources of the country, or a side-effect of living life as a soldier for two years - it's just "dorky." At least he doesn't feel like someone's taped a sign to his back, not since he asked Darcy - Agent Lewis - why he kept getting that reaction.
Of course the fact that she had to explain what 'Because you're a dork' meant didn't really help his... street cred. He chuckles to himself, only a little ironic, at managing to use both terms in one train of thought.
A few streets later he's getting very confused. Usually he's able to find at least one familiar street or landmark to point him in the general right direction, at least until he finds a cab to get him the rest of the way back to the mansion. He's done this enough in the months he's been here that his assigned SHIELD shadows don't pop a vein unless he's not back by morning - in this case, though, that's probably working against him.
Finally Steve sighs and digs into his pocket to pull out his cellular phone. He looks at it for a moment, smiling to himself and wondering what Howard would make of all this. Tiny phones with tinier batteries and communicators and jets that don't need runways to take off.
Well, for all Steve knows, Howard invented most of it. He still hasn't been able to bring himself to look at history texts to see how his friends lived out their lives. There's something too much like admitting he's never going to see them again in doing that.
He flips the phone open gingerly, poking the tiny buttons with his pinky because he's not sure how else to manage the thing, and dials in what he's fairly sure is Darcy's number. Agent Lewis's number. He could try calling someone else, but she's friendly, in her own way. She doesn't treat him like a loaded gun waiting to be pointed at the next Big Bad Guy.
Steve lifts the phone to his ear with a frown. "Uh. Hello?"
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Bruce shifts in his seat awkwardly as he wrings his hands together in his lap. After a few moments (that seem much longer than they actually are) of awkward silence, he tries to get things back on track. "Uh. S-so. How did that all... Happen? I mean. Most of the stuff I've r- It's not really. The beginning isn't ever really discussed that much. I mean. If you want to talk about it, you obviously don't have to if y- I don't mean to be all nosy or anything."
Being a part of the team and part of S.H.I.E.L.D. has given Bruce some sort of clearance level, he's pretty sure, but. There's something that seems very rude to just go and look through people's files and folders just because he can.
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Cap's face lights up again for a brief, brief moment. "He kidnapped me once for fondue in Lucerne, right in the middle of a mission. It was kind of a running joke. Howard could seem totally irresponsible. He made passes at pretty much every woman he ever met. But he never forgot where we were or what we were trying to do. That's what folks didn't understand about him. He knew he was a celebrity, and he gave people something to talk about that wasn't the War. He kind of looked at it as another duty I guess."
Steve shakes his head, grinning at the floor. It takes him a second to remember the rest of what Bruce said. "Oh. Uh... well, there was this procedure. It worked. And then... Schmidt made sure it couldn't work again. His guy... blew the place up. Murdered the doctor."
His hands tighten into fists and his jaw works a little as he remembers Johann Schmidt and the operative that killed Erskine. "I caught the man who destroyed the project and he killed himself, right there, while I held on to his shirt."
Steve blinks, jerking slightly in surprise at his own vehemence and the words that just came spilling out. "Sorry."
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"No, no, it's. That's something to get all... About. You don't have to apologize, and, I mean. Especially not to me. I'm kind of pretty much the poster guy for anger issues." He tries to smile an apology there, make it seem slightly less of a deal than it is, but. It only halfway works.
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A good man.
Steve closes his eyes and gathers himself, focusing on Bruce again. "What about you? If you don't mind me asking. I heard a little bit about before you came here." He feels a little twinge of guilt for looking at the files. "You must have seen a lot of the world."
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"No, I don't mind, it's. You've gone and shared, so the least I can do is go and do the same. Uh." He rubs the back of his neck, his head going back to quietly thunk against the wall. "I guess I have, though I wasn't really, you know. Paying attention to the scenery a lot. Been through most of the Midwest, upper East Coast, um. Ended up heading along the Rockies into Alaska... Then down through Mexico and that whole part of Central America. Spent the most time in, hm. Brazil and Canada. Then here, of course." He bites his lip thoughtfully. "I liked the rain forests down there. Humid, really humid, and hard to move around in, but there was just so much color. Just... Popping everywhere, and all of it bright and vibrant." Even after every flower he brought back with him after his hikes turned out to be a dead end, he could still appreciate the aesthetic of it. And walking alone in the jungle, you could feel like you were the only person on the planet.
Bruce assumes Steve's read at least a little of his file - being as up until these past few months he was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top priorities, he also assumes that file is as comprehensive as can be. It's just how things are. He can hope that the Captain's missed or skipped over some things, but. Hope's not really gotten him much of anywhere.
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Well, it would be lonely, obviously. He likes being surrounded, actually enjoys the noise and activity of the mansion.
Steve shakes his head. "It sounds... Well, it definitely sounds different." He ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck, laughing with an extra dose of awkward. "Sorry, I just have a hard time picturing it. I mean, I've only been here and on the Western Front, and it's pretty much like New England weather with more languages thrown in."
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Of course, here time isn't something that he's in huge supply of here. Most of it's spent either heading out on missions and sleeping off the aftereffects of his episodes. Then there's the meditation exercises, which he's need to up a bit, given certain housemates and their tendency to rub his nerves raw, and catching up on the stuff he's missed. Remembering to eat now and again pretty much rounds it all out, at least in between experiments.
"I heard that, uh..." Bruce stops there, reminding himself of just when Steve was over there in Europe, and that no matter what time of year, nice didn't much enter into the scenery. "Er. ...Well, it's been a long time since I was in a city big as New York. I mean. For an extended period, that is. There was the one time I came up this way before and that... That. Didn't go so well." His ears burn and his eyes go off to the side to avoid looking at other man as he remembers Harlem burning from the helicopter's windows.
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"From what I understand you pretty much saved the lives of everyone involved."
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"Sorry, but. You must've heard pretty wrong on that one since. Well. That's just not how it happened."
Cleaning up things that only could have happened because of your own stupid mistakes doesn't make you a hero. Certainly not when 'cleaning up' just ends up making a bigger mess of things across the board.
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He shakes his head and tries to find the words. "It's like when you set a second fire to go and fight a bigger, first one. You don't go and, uh, congratulate that second one, you just go and count your blessings the wind was the right way and things didn't burn twice as fast."
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He's not sure what to do with this entire conversation any more. "...Well. If you say it like that. What Dr. Erskine did was just lighting a new fire, too. All of us, the whole Avengers thing. You can't just let the world burn. Besides I think it's more like... fighting a rock with another rock."
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Bruce squirms a bit in his seat, more than a little uncomfortable. It's one part his usual not knowing what to do in conversation, more parts talking about his episodes, and even more parts being uncertain what to do with being called a hero. So he latches onto something else.
"Erskine? That's." His forehead wrinkles a bit, trying to remember where he's heard that name before. "I think I've read some of his work," he says slowly, chewing on his lip until it hits him. "It was mostly B- Uh. Another scientist's focus than mine, I was all in--" There's a general hand-wave as to where he was before getting back to point. "Anyway, what little the General let us see, you know, in between the edits, that is, it was. It was brilliant stuff. Th-"
Wait, something does not make sense. Bruce had assumed that Dr. Erskine was just another scientist Ross had contracted on another project, and he hadn't presumed that he knew the community well enough to know everyone. But if Steve...
"How did you know him?"
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The smile drops off his face and he looks at his hands. "His serum was misused by the Schmidt, Johann Schmidt, the head of Hydra. It changed him, kind of like it changed me - except t made him the Red Skull. It's what the Nazi soldiers who'd seen him, the ones who got out alive, who weren't part of Hydra? It's what they called him."
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Once his brain starts though, it keeps going, and the realization goes from quiet to pained.
Ross had Erskine's notes. Ross would have known - he'd had to have known where those notes came from. And Ross had wanted a weaponized result. A super soldier. A whole slew of Captain Americas.
If he'd needed another yardstick to measure his failings against, well, Bruce sure has it now. Sitting across from the real reason for his research, what it all should have resulted in, and what he himself was now...
"Damn it," he mutters as he starts slowly and methodically pounding the back of his head against the wall.
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"Woah woah hey, stop that, fella." He's doing his best not to look worried or alarmed. "What's wrong? What happened?"
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"You happened," he replies, as if it should be obvious. "And then I happened, and." He shakes his head, still laughing hoarsely as his head lolls back against the wall and rests there. He brings up a hand, drags it down his face. "I mean, I knew I'd screwed up pretty bad, but not to that certain kind of epic degree of failure until. I- Not that it's news to much of anyone, but I'm just. A complete idiot. That's all. Sorry."
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Steve doesn't know how hard that choice of words hits, and it starts Bruce off laughing all over again. He's been trying to fix it for the better part of a decade now with no luck and as much as the offer's appreciated, he's pretty sure there's nobody out there who can help him along with it.
"The Gamma Pulse Project," he says after he's caught his breath. "What I was working on when- They wanted you. We had Erskine's notes, but we didn't know, and." Shaking his head, Bruce slips back into laughter, but drier this time, without that moseying-toward-unhinged sound it had before. "They wanted you, and what they got was me. I mean - just look at me." There's a helpless shrug, and something tugs at the corner of his mouth before giving up. "It's kind of funny, you know, once you get past how ridiculously far off the actual mark I was. Hilarious, even."
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He sits down next to Bruce, looking incredibly tired. "Erskine told me the night before he died, that..." How can he remember that night so clearly? "He told me why he chose me. He told me that a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows compassion. He told me to stay who I was, no matter what happened."
Steve fists his hands together and leans his forehead against them. "After the procedure, after he died and the last vial of the serum broke, they were going to take me to Alamogordo. Use me as a test subject. Try and rebuild. I didn't go. If I had-" He breaks off. "...I'm sorry."
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"Look, I." He stares at the floor and tries to go and figure out what he's going to say without screwing up what he means. "If you had gone and... You know. Made a lab rat of yourself. You wouldn't have gone and. Done what you did. Which made a difference. N-not only in the whole, er, war thing, though you did make a huge difference there too, I'm not saying you didn't but." Bruce keeps his eyes down and his ears go more than slightly red. "You probably go and get this a lot, but. You've meant a whole lot to people since then, even to the people who just thought it was a, um. Comic book story. Just. That's important enough for--"
Bruce shakes his head as his hand fists at his pants, the clothe bunching up between his fingers. "What happened to me, that... I know that wasn't anyone's fault but my own. I was stupid and impulsive and reckless and I didn't think beyond the." He cuts himself off there - it's an old rant, one he's rehearsed in his head too many times to count, and Steve doesn't need to hear it. "So that's. It's not on you."
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He cuts that thought off and gets up to pace a few steps away, then back, clasping his hands behind him in parade rest and then dropping them loose to his sides. He's not uncomfortable, exactly, just... Once the campaigning for bonds was done, the movies made, and he was out in the field with the only cameras being the ones catching shots of him and the Commandos for the news reels... He kind of forgot about the celebrity part of things. He didn't forget his country, or the people in it, the people counting on him and his men - but he forgot that they knew him, forgot that they watched fabricated heroics playing out in matinees, or bought comics with his name on the pages.
"I'm just a kid from Brooklyn," he says, irony in his tone. He remembers saying those same words to the Schmidt, not too long ago.
He smiles faintly. Telling Bruce he's seen kids pretending to be the Hulk, beating the Abomination on downtown playgrounds, probably won't help him feel better. "I made a choice to try and serve my country, and so did you. Maybe it was stupid and impulsive and reckless, but what you're doing now, with where it's put you... You're a hero, as much as I am, as much as anyone in this building. And sometimes being stupid and reckless when you're trying to do the hero stuff is... well, it's what saves lives."
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...It probably wouldn't help, no. It would probably have him blanching and wondering what was wrong with kids today. Then again, compared to him, Steve still is a kid, and it's a bit of a trip to remember that, technically, Bruce is the older one here.
He replies in a small voice, and feels even more like a failure compared to Steve as he does so. "I don't want to be anybody's hero. I just... All I wanted-" He shakes his head because to put it in past tense is wrong, like he's given up on it. He hasn't, darn it. He won't. "All I want is to be normal. To be left alone. That's it." Compared to Steve, who's still fighting the good fight after all these years, it's cowardly and petty and selfish and Bruce knows it. It's the truth, though; at least he can say that he's honest about it. Not much of a plus, but still.
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He rubs the back of his neck. "I know what it meant to me, being able to fight and protect."
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Scratching at his neck, a rueful smile settles on his face. "I'm more, um. The running away type. Lots and lots of running." Not so much anymore, but it worked well enough when he did.
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