Disclaimer: Steve and Bruce and all those guys aren't mine. But the Super Soldier program was all me. No it wasn't. I was not alive in the forties.

For the first time, Steve Rogers was not happy to be the man for the job.

The wails of a chorus of sirens made his sensitive ears tingle. The dusty smell of smoke and pulverized cement coated his nostrils and throat, and the panic of the dazed civilians around him was infectious. His big heart was thudding fast. But he could handle all this. He was a soldier. He had seen worse. But that didn't change the fact that he was uncomfortable here, wandering past crushed cars and avoiding gaping cracks in the streets and searching for one particular blank stare among the dozens that passed him.

In any other circumstances, Steve would have been happy to come. In fact, he would have volunteered to aid in the cleanup. Unfortunately, he hadn't been picked for this because of his physical ability. He had been picked because he was, as everyone said, "a good guy". Because he was honest and friendly. Because he was the least likely to set Banner off and lose him completely.

Steve picked his way through a smattering of bricks, looking around. The destruction tapered off in this area; Banner had to be nearby. The local police force and firemen were taking charge of the situation, directing streams of evacuating civilians, dousing gas fires, deploying blue-clad medical personnel. People were crying or stammering accounts of their personal experience. The shared state of shock was more than Steve could bear. He offered a reassuring smile to a woman whose hair was falling out of its precise bun. She didn't seem to register and blinked at him, stupefied.

He turned away awkwardly and his gaze fell on a scene down the street. Through the general chaos, Steve caught sight of one man—hunched, head down, wearing nothing but a few determined shreds of denim—sitting in the cargo area of an ambulance. A medic was trying to tend to his limp right arm and battered bare feet, but the man was stubbornly shaking his head, looking ill and ashen-faced. Steve's heart sank as he made his way over.

"Sir, at least let me get the glass out," the weary medic was saying.

"No." The man shook his head, jaw and eyes clenched shut against two types of pain. "Tend to them. Over there." He made a vague gesture with his good hand. "I…I don't need it."

The medic pulled an exasperated face and Steve chose that moment to step in. He touched the man's shoulder and smiled. "I'm his friend. Let me talk to him."

Without waiting for the medic's consent, Steve took a seat next to Banner, whose shoulders rose and fell as he breathed heavily into the hand pressed against his mouth. Steve could hear the rasp of sobs in each exhalation. He leaned forward and caught the gleam of suppressed tears as Banner stared at the pavement in front of him. Words spun in his head but none of them stuck. Why did they think he could do this? How was he supposed to convince a man of his innocence when he sat in the middle of the evidence of his guilt? Steve opened his mouth and closed it almost immediately, because he had missed his chance and Banner was speaking.

"I thought I had it under control." His voice was so soft that Steve wondered if he was speaking to himself, unaware that he could hear every word. "I…it's almost been a year…next week it would've been a year…I thought I was doing well." He lifted his head and looked around and Steve watched him swallow the bile rising in his throat. "I'm so sorry," Banner whispered, "I'm so sorry."

Then he turned to Steve. "Why are you here?" he asked hoarsely. "Why did they send you?" He hardly gave Steve the chance to reply. "I have to leave. Don't they understand that? I'm a menace. I'm a threat to the safety of…everybody."

"That's not true." Steve spoke up quickly. "That's not true at all."

Banner scoffed. "Do you not see the city right now? That was me, Captain. That was all me."

"Anything with the power to destroy also has the power to create," Steve said. He felt like he was about to climb onstage and give a rousing kill-the-Germans speech. He hadn't felt that way for a few decades. Maybe that's why they picked him. Because of the good old dancing monkey days.

"Raw anger can't create anything, Captain." Banner shook his head and watched a father hurry past with a grip on the hands of his two small sons. "Where's their mother?" he murmured, and buried his face in his hands with a moan. "I don't understand," Banner whispered. "My research was meticulous. But I'm a monster…and you're a legend."

Steve felt like he'd taken a punch to the gut. He was speechless, because the scientist was right. Banner's attempts to recreate the results of the original Super Soldier experiment had gone completely, horribly wrong. Banner's attempts to recreate Steve Rogers had destroyed his life. Fury knew this. So why had he sent the one man who was everything Bruce Banner had wanted so badly, but could never hope, to be?

Steve cleared his throat and clasped his hands in front of him and thought back to when they had handed him a piece of paper covered with propaganda that sounded phony and forced, pushed him onto a stage and told him to be patriotic. He had taken a look at himself and seen a living American flag and wondered why patriotic was the last thing he felt. And eventually he figured it out: because people—the people that mattered, that needed inspired, the soldiers themselves—didn't buy his plugs for war bonds and rationing. What they bought was his desire to fight alongside them, his complete dedication to the American cause. They bought Steve Rogers, not the Super Soldier serum. And once he had realized that—that although he was a new man in the physical sense, he was still patriotic featherweight Steve Rogers underneath the muscle—he made an impact. A real, lasting impact.

So Steve Rogers set aside Captain America for a moment and spoke to Banner the way he would've spoken to those soldiers.

"I asked Fury how we won the war," he said. "He told me the Germans made some bad decisions, and we made good ones. And he told me we bombed Japan." He looked Bruce in the eye. "Do you know the number of casualties that came from that event? Somewhere around 200,000 people."

Banner blinked. "How is that supposed to—"

"So why didn't we get rid of every piece of nuclear technology we had? Why did we keep developing nuclear science?"

"…politics?"

Steve had to smile, but he shook his head. "You're a nuclear physicist, Banner. Nobody knows better than you the potential of nuclear energy. There were scientists out there who knew that in time, this technology could become more than just a weapon."

"…what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that with a little work, even the most destructive power we possess can be turned around and used to benefit the world," Steve replied. "We need you, Bruce. We can't destroy our nukes just yet. We might have to dig a little deeper, and we will. And we'll find a way to make you more than just a weapon."

He watched Banner mull this over, knowing he had driven his point home as best as he could. He was confident that there was nothing more he could say. And when the man looked up, Steve saw that he had said enough. There was a brand-new hope in Banner's eyes. "You…might have to dig pretty deep."

Steve grinned and squeezed his shoulder.

"As long as you let us try."

I hope you enjoyed all those feels. Please review even if you didn't lol. Thanks for reading! It means a lot.