I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in

[ex_enlisted288]

WHO: Steve Rogers
WHERE: House 18; River
WHEN: Mid September
OPEN TO: Friends / OTA
WARNINGS: Nada, will update if necessary

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HOUSE PROJECT

[ Steve has never had his own place before. Not one he picked out himself. His mother rented the one he grew up in, then he moved into an orphanage after she died, then he and Bucky moved in together after high school. In the Army, he took whatever tent or barracks they assigned. After the defrost, SHIELD found a temporary apartment in Brooklyn, and again in DC when his orders sent him to the Triskelion. Nick Fury found him a place once they'd demolished one of the world's foremost law and order organizations. Long story short - he's been jumping from one bolthole to another without really caring whether it not it's really his.

The island is different. (He's not entirely sure it is an island, but exploring that far afield is for another time.) There are no barracks here, no footlocker full of mementos from home or a uniform. Not a real set anyway, the scrubs don't count until the Observers appear and line everyone up according to color code. If they do, Steve plans to start a rebellion immediately, because he's seen what happens to people forced to wear different colors. It's one of the things that makes him uneasy about the scrubs. Like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Until that happens, though, he's chosen one of the empty houses, so another room at the inn is free to some future arrival. Over the course of the last several weeks, Steve has hauled water from the river in a borrowed bucket and scrubbed every inch of his new home. Floors, walls, windows, wiped down what furniture came with the house. Cleaning is an activity he likes, which might seem weird to anyone else, but he was so sick, or frail, as a child that housework had to be done in little bursts, else he risked a coughing fit or pushing his heart to the point of needing a hospital. It's just really nice to be able to perform tasks that everyone takes for granted. Something he tries hard not to.

And the last few days have been taken up with laundry. Stripping the beds, dragging them down to the river for cleaning, and tossing his extra set of scrubs in the process. He's strung up an old-fashioned laundry line across the front porch and rigged some pins to keep the sheets and clothing in one place until they're all dry. Interested parties can find him sketching on the porch or puttering around inside. ]


FISHING PROJECT

[ As far as city living goes, Steve likes to think he's fairly self-sufficient. He's known how to get around one since he was a child. Public transit doesn't bother him. Neither does shopping at local grocery stores. (Although modern prices are still outrageous.) He can winter a weather without heat, has made a candle almost from scratch but prefers flashlights these days, and can handle himself well in the concrete jungle.

But this place is different. He's not accustomed to living off the land, and what knowledge he has of that is paired with the depths of human misery on the European front during World War II, because the Commandos scrounged what they had to when the going got tough. So he's got a tiny bit of woodsy experience. However, that is definitely not the same thing as being able to provide a service to the village outside of drawing pretty pictures. He needs to be useful.

Therefore Steve has been trying to teach himself to fish. Loitering around the Inn week after week, listening to snippets of conversations, has gleaned him just enough information to make a fishing rod from the branch of a young sapling. And he found a sharp, pointy rock on his daily wandering, tying it to the stick with a bunch of badly woven grass. So far, his spear-fishing skills are not that great: he's caught two fish in the last week, and one of them was mostly an accident.

But that won't stop him from heading out again after breakfast, determined to learn this valuable skill for his community. ]

Comments

[ex_enlisted288]

Bruce. [ Steve mimics his tone, but it's not intended in a mean way. More that its another form of teasing, something he doesn't do a lot anymore, but it's also meant to drive home a point. ] I believe you. I really do. And that is all I care about. The Hulk is one side of you. A huge, green, rage-induced side, but. You know. The captain is one side of me.

That doesn't mean I believe it myself.

[ Right? Right. And topic considered officially dropped. At least until the arguing starts up again. It probably will. Both men have Opinions about a lot of different subjects. ]

Oh, I hope she doesn't swoon. Her guy will knock me out. [ Whether or not that means Bruce himself or her husband is up in the air. ] Well. I've been accused of being a born optimist. So I guess we're a matched set.

[notsoangry]

"Hey, you take compliments better than I do. I feel physically ill when someone says something nice about me." It's a very, very weird thing to admit to, but it's the way his brain works, and he's trying to let Steve know that he does get it to an extent. Anxiety is attached to nice things. He doesn't get to keep nice things. "I know I can't make you feel the same way, but I guess just know that there are people who think that about you. Who are, uh, grateful. To know you." This makes him nervous too, sharing his thoughts and feelings. As long as Steve gets the message, whether it helps or not, it'll be worth the discomfort.

Bruce chuckles. "We need more optimists. The world's full of too many pessimists." Too many people who saw the worst in themselves and humanity. He saw too much of it. "I know, um, that Ms. Carter is here too. That must at least be ... nice?" He isn't sure. It seems like it would be nice, even if they weren't continuing their past, to see each other alive.

[ex_enlisted288]

I don't really. I just. Let them go by.

[ Like a bus, or an airplane, or anything else that moves past under its own steam. A train. Although thinking of trains often leads to thinking of the Alps and Steve isn't ready to open up that particular wound right now.

Especially when another one is offered up on a silver platter. He can't deny it's wonderful to see Peg. Alive and well and young again. Feisty, ready to take on the world at the drop of a hat. But. But. It's also terrible. A wound he can't close again because she's there in the village and he doesn't know how to cope. ]

Yeah, it is nice. Peggy Carter is a hell of a woman. [ and predictably, his voice cracks on 'is'. ] She died. Back home. Had dementia the last few years of her life. Didn't always remember who people were.

[ Or that he'd been found and thawed. So many visits had been a merry-go-round of anguish. ]

I was one of the pallbearers at her funeral. [ which means, yes, he'd had to bury his best girl. ]

[notsoangry]

Bruce did know about that, in a general way. Tony said that his aunt Peggy died, and at the time, he noted to himself how hard that must have been on Steve. He was shocked when he realized who that kind British woman was on his first day, and he plans on finding her again. In retrospect he might have approached this more wisely. He's really terrible at talking to people.

"I'm sorry, Steve. It never gets any easier, losing people." He's not going to say things like at least she lived a good long life, because those types of things are not helpful. At leasts are not comforting. "We knew a lot about her, studying the project. She was Betty's hero." A powerful woman taking charge despite the situation and prejudice around her? At the time, a woman in the STEM field understood it well. They probably still did.

If this was Tony, he'd know what to say. He's flying a little more blind with Steve, but sometimes trying is all you can do. "Have you gotten to talk to her here at least? She found me my first day and gave me tea."

[ex_enlisted288]

No, it doesn't. No matter if it's only one person. Or ten. Or twenty. Or a whole battlefield of them. [ Steve offers a small smile that might seem a little brittle around the edges. He's been surrounded by death most of his life. People died frequently in the tenements where he grew up and life didn't get any easier during the Depression.

At least, he thinks, the deaths of his childhood weren't ones he contributed to directly, like being given command of other units and having to send them into battle during the war. And it makes him wonder how intimately familiar Bruce is with death. His own parents notwithstanding. ]

Yeah, we've had a few conversations. I'd recommend sitting down and letting her bend your ear on various topics. Peg is incredibly smart.

[notsoangry]

Bruce's intimate relationship with death surrounds entirely the ones he's responsible for. He's made lists in his head. He's counted up the number from every Hulk incident, every person placed at risk. Once he's on Earth long enough to add Sokovia to the death toll, it will go up significantly. He'll never know how high the number was on Sakaar, but it's high enough for the Hulk to be champion for years, killing all others in his path. It's not the same as losing people he loves, but Bruce also only allows himself to love a very small number of people.

"I plan on doing that, for sure. I'm still astonished I didn't recognize her on sight, but it was a really hard day. I got completely drunk by the end of it." Bruce grimaces. "First time, and I didn't realize how strong it is here." One drink seemed perfectly reasonable! And then two. And then six. It wasn't a graceful start. "Not with her, though, thankfully." It was embarrassing enough with a stranger.

Bruce studies his friend, crossing arms. "How are you doing? With all of this." Watching him carefully.

[ex_enlisted288]

[ Right. Because the Hulk isn't a force of nature and was able to be controlled right off the bat. Steve has seen some of the footage. He's not going to say there isn't some control present, or that the Hulk isn't intelligent, but if he and Banner could be controlled that easily, then they wouldn't have been on the run.

Which doesn't mean he's going to try and naysay how Bruce feels about it. Just that Steve is more inclined to take a more sympathetic view. Don't shoot or harm Bruce and there's every chance the Hulk won't break free to wreak havoc. There's every chance that the Hulk might be open to less destruction. But that's an argument for a different day. ]

She can be very unassuming when she wants to be. [ read: it isn't often. ] Thankfully. You shouldn't worry, though. Agent Carter has seen her share of drunk soldiers. Drunk men.

[ and will lay them flat if they try anything. ]

Me? I'm fine.

[ And that is his professional USO tour expression. ]

[notsoangry]

"I think it's more that when I first got here, I had no reason to think that I could run into someone from the past. It's not exactly the first thing that would come to mind. I was still adjusting to the lack of the big guy." Adjusting is one word. Not adjusting at all is closer to the truth. It's not that he and the Hulk actively shares a mind, he ordinarily can't talk to him or know for certain his other side understands, but there's a marked difference for a complete absence. There was a presence and then there was nothing.

Bruce gives one of his small, half-apologetic smiles. "Do you want me to pretend I believe that?" If it was Tony, Bruce would know what to say, what to do. He regrets now not making the time to learn some of Steve's tells too, so he's not this hesitant and uncertain of his welcome to pressing. Bruce can get nosy when he thinks he has the right. "I know I'm not, um, Nat. Or Sam. Or Bucky." The people Steve trusts and talks to most of the time. "But I'm your friend if you want to talk."

[ex_enlisted288]

Hey, I'm from the past. [ But for serious, he gets it. Nobody expects the spanish inquisition to run into a legend like Margaret Carter on a mystical island. that's probably the last expectation on anyone's mind. It occurs, belatedly, that he and Bruce are in the same boat. or similar boats. Without the serum. Without the Hulk. Adjustments have to be made by both of them to survive here.

He feels bad for having not really thought about that before. ]

I want you to do whatever you want to Bruce. [ The grimace is only visible for a second. ] Nat has her own thing going. So does Bucky, with his girlfriend and making a real life for himself here. And Sam isn't around. [ Not that he would talk about how he feels with any one of them barring threats or dire situations. His problems are small beans compared to making sure everyone else is doing okay. ]

But -- look, I'm not gonna be anybody's burden. [ never fucking again. he had 25 years of that shit. ] I appreciate the offer, though.

[notsoangry]

Bruce pauses and thinks through a response. He's not someone who talks impulsively, when he thinks that words have weight and meaning. Usually the only time people get fast responses from him are when he's startled or embarrassed, and that's not the case for him here. It's his mind calibrating what he wants to say and how.

"We have some things in common, you know. It's not as obvious as the ways we relate to others, but it's under the surface." Which is worse. Things out in the open can be addressed and understood. Everything on the inside was harder to treat, harder to be honest with. He can't quite make eye contact, but he tries. "Because I could say to you, but Steve, if we came to you with personal issues, you wouldn't consider us burdening you, right? And you'd probably go, no, of course not, but it's different for me. It's what I do all the time. Think about the ways I burden others, how I've failed everyone. That it's all my fault, so I have to deal with it." And that is exactly how he feels, all of the time. It's a running commentary in his head. The difference is that Steve's been trained how to keep it inside, whereas Bruce is terrible at it, his neurotic nature and anxieties all on open display for people who are looking.

"Maybe I'm reaching, but I will say this. Friendship is a two way street. If we can lean on you, you should let yourself lean on us."