Bruce II: Stirrings

At the beginning of sophomore year of college, the talk of the town became study abroad. Most of his peers—including Betty Ross, who also chose Penn State and with whom Bruce had become close friends—were planning to go for an entire semester during junior year, or for a summer. The idea absolutely terrified him, but at the same time he knew his education would reap countless benefits. He started doing research in addition to all his coursework, searching for a program he could feasibly get into. The countless options were overwhelming, with seemingly every country in the world offering something or another. Bruce narrowed his search to programs suitable for biochem and to countries he would feel comfortable spending several months in. It would certainly be a culturally enriching experience to go somewhere like Kenya or Thailand, but Bruce had read too many articles and seen too many newsclips about infectious disease to consider going somewhere like that. Europe sounded like a safe bet.

Bruce made an appointment with the Office of International Education to help him narrow down his options and start his applications for various programs. He'd found one in particular at a small private research facility called Sakaar that really enticed him because it gave him the opportunity to work one-on-one with a faculty member. Knowing what he did about his own personal preferences, Bruce thought getting comfortable working with one person would be easier than with a team of people. The faculty of the place was the most hodge-podge group of people he'd ever read about, but they all evidently knew their stuff.

He started work on his applications in September, with the goal of finishing them as soon as possible so he could focus on schoolwork as it got more intense deeper in the semester. It was as he looked through options and fees for housing that he had an idea. This university wasn't far from Tønsberg, Norway. Not far at all. Bruce stepped away from his desk long enough to send a very important text message.

"Hey Thor, what are you doing this summer?"

"Chilling at home. Why?" he wrote back.

"I might be spending the summer at a university near Tønsberg."

"No way! You have to come visit! Or even better, you could stay with us!"

Bruce was shocked and relieved that Thor arrived at the question at hand without him even having to ask it. That made his job a lot easier. "Would your family be okay with that?"

"I have to ask, but probably! We love guests. The house feels empty since Hela moved out."

"If you could ask them and get back to me that would be great."

"Of course!"

He only had to wait about eight hours before Thor got back to him with an affirmative answer. His family would be thrilled to host Bruce for the summer. Bruce literally whooped with joy. Not only would living with someone he already knew save him a lot of worrying about acclimating to a host family of strangers, but it would save him money too. It was a win-win. He threw himself into the application process with renewed energy, his excitement at spending the summer with Thor fueling his drive to get accepted into the program.

Bruce wrote up a to-do list for this application, pinning it to the bulletin board behind his desk where he had all the schedules and syllabi for his courses. He'd already crossed off half the steps, but he still needed to ask a professor for a letter of recommendation, write an essay for the second prompt, and get transcripts from the registrar. It was a lot on top of his already mountainous pile of homework, but Bruce approached it with the same attitude he always did: one thing at a time until it's done.

"Are you sure you want to go to Norway?" Mom asked during their weekly phone call. Bruce had been raving to her about the opportunity every week since he first stumbled upon it.

"Yes, Mom. It's going to be great. My friend Thor from Gravesen even offered to let me stay with his family the whole time."

"That's awfully generous of him."

"I know."

"If you go, we'd better make sure to send you with a gift for them to thank them for hosting you."

"Yeah, of course. What are you thinking?"

"I don't know what's appropriate for that sort of occasion. I've never lived with a friend for multiple months."

"Maybe we should bake them something."

"That's a pretty good idea."

"But we have a long time to think about it. I'm not leaving until mid-May."

"Yeah, that's a long ways away."

Bruce could tell his Mom meant, "That's plenty of time to change your mind," but he just let it go. When the time came, she would definitely let him go. His mother always seemed hesitant at first, like Bruce, but if he proved he really wanted to do this she would definitely support him. She was probably just worried that he would be too nervous to actually go through with it, but Bruce was determined to prove her wrong in that respect. And he was determined to prove to himself that he could do new things.

The next day, he was working on homework after shooting a thoroughly-proofread email to the registrar, when his phone buzzed. "I did it," the message read.

"I'm impressed," Bruce replied. He never thought Jen would work up the courage to do anything more than rave to him about whatever she saw this crazy crush of hers do at school. For the past few weeks, she'd been telling him that she was going to talk to him, and she'd finally acted on that promise. "How'd it go?"

"Honestly, I don't think he's ever had a girl talk to him before."

Bruce chuckled. "I wouldn't be surprised."

"I think something's going on between him and his friends. I only talked to him because he was sitting by himself today."

"That's odd." For as long as Bruce had known him, he'd been inseparable from his best friend. What could possibly have driven him to sit separately from them? The only reason Bruce could think of was one of them being sick, but then wouldn't the sick one isolate himself? Still, he supposed it was plausible. Maybe multiple of them had caught colds. "Are any of his friends sick?" he asked Jen.

"I don't think so. I didn't hear any sniffles or sneezes when I walked past their table."

"That's so weird."

"I'll sit with him again tomorrow and try to figure it out. I'll let you know when I have information."

"Okay. Good luck."

Bruce sighed and switched his phone to do no disturb so he could focus on these chemistry problems. With an exam coming up soon, he needed to get the practice in. His study habits were less obsessive-compulsive than they used to be, but still rigorous compared to most of his peers. For the next forty five minutes, he worked through the set at the end of the chapter, checking his answers after each section. All correct. Bruce smiled and shut the textbook. He glanced at the clock and, noticing the late hour, quickly showered and brushed his teeth before bed. Reading through his favorite chapter of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, his eyelids started to droop, so he put it down and fell asleep.

~0~

About two weeks later, after sending periodic updates of her investigation, an investigation which included going on a date with him, Jen actually called Bruce. "What's going on?" he asked, wondering why she chose to have this conversation verbally instead of over text.

"I think I got to the bottom of it. Well, sort of."

"This is about your boy?"

"Yes, of course! And don't call him that. We went on one date, and it didn't exactly end well."

"Whatever. What's wrong?"

"They had a falling out. Him and his best friend."

Bruce almost dropped the phone. The last falling out among his group of friends had not ended well. Well, it had eventually ended well, but some truly horrible things had occurred in the middle. He didn't want to know what another civil war could wreak. "What about?" he asked urgently.

"I don't know. He wouldn't tell me. But I'm going to guess it's pretty bad."

"No kidding. Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

"I don't know! Aren't you good at mediating conflict?"

"Why does everyone think that?" Tony had always turned to him for advice, and for the life of him Bruce still didn't know why he'd chosen him the first time. Before Gravesen, he had absolutely no practice settling arguments. For most of his life he'd just been a punching bag for his father; there was no room for mediation there.

"I don't know. I guess you're quiet, and people associate that with peace."

"Or anxiety," he huffed.

"Sure, whatever. But I seriously think you need to talk to them. As you know, I've always…observed…him pretty closely, more so these past two weeks, and he's not himself. He's hurting."

"You mean you stalked him?"

"No!"

"Okay, fine." His cousin's level of obsession was not the issue at hand here. "What do you want me to do? I don't talk to them that often, it would be weird if I suddenly jumped in and asked, 'Why are you fighting and how can I fix it?'"

"Well I certainly don't know what to do."

"Jen, I can't believe you're dragging me into this," Bruce sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. He had so much work to get done, and he didn't have time to play peacemaker.

"I'm not. I'm just informing you of the situation. You can decide whether or not to do anything about it."

"Oh, I can?"

"Yeah, of course you can."

While he knew it was factually true, Bruce's morals wouldn't allow him to know about this and do nothing. He knew he wouldn't be able to focus knowing his friends were at odds with each other for some unknown reason. However, staging an intervention on his own wasn't plausible both because of his busy schedule and his relationship with them. He needed help.

"Okay, I think I know what to do," he announced.

"You do?"

"I need to call in reinforcements."

"Good. Bruce, I really hope this works. I don't like seeing him so sad."

"I'll try my best," he promised. "Gotta go."

"Okay, bye. I'll let you know if anything changes."

"Got it. Bye."

Bruce sat in silence for ten minutes pondering if this was really the right move. When no better options presented themselves, he opened his messages and typed out a new one: "Tony, Parker. We have a situation."

Don't yell at me because you're confused. You're supposed to be. I told you going in that this story would not flow chronologically, and this is an example of that. With the next few chapters, we're going to explore what the heck Jen is talking about. In other words...this is the beginning of the end. If you consider the last 20 chapters of an 85-chapter story to be the end.