The Cat that Walked by Himself
Measured Words, part 3 - Bruce gets angry at Steve. And for once, Bruce sticks around to speak his mind. For Tony.
"I need to talk to you about Tony," Steve tells Bruce one morning over an early breakfast. "I know the two of you spend a lot of time together. Does he talk to you? I need to know what's going on in his head; I need him to listen to me in battle, but I just can't seem to quite figure out the right way to talk to him."
"Steve, he does listen," Bruce replies. "He respects you a lot. What else do you need?"
"I don't get that," Steve says, frowning. "He just... does things, and I can't see where he's coming from, and he never lets us in on his plans, so we could maybe, I don't know, help him with them? He has to do everything on his own terms, by himself. I'd like to help. I'd like to think he trusts us enough to ask us for help."
"You know, the Hulk pretty much does his own thing in battle too. And you never press me for my issues, on or off the battlefield. Do you press him for him, for the team? Or because you want what you had with Howard? Because that's... really not gonna work out."
"No," Steve says. "This is about Tony. I'm worried about Tony."
"Why is it okay for me to keep my problems to myself, why do I get a pass, and he doesn't? Is it because he's loud? Well, at least he's trying. Maybe you should be pressing me to try as hard as Tony does."
"You need your space," Steve replies. "We all know that."
"Yes, sometimes I do," says Bruce, looking hard at Steve. "And do you know what Tony needs?"
Steve's voice is strained with worry and frustration as he says, "No, because he won't tell me!"
"He tries, Steve!" Bruce replies with matched emphasis. "Okay, okay, let me tell you what Tony needs. He needs your support. He needs you to trust his judgement, because the calls he makes in the heat of battle are always weighed thoroughly, he always sees them as necessary, but he can't always explain why. He needs you to take Jarvis's words as his own and trust their partnership."
Rogers frowns. "Jarvis is a machine, isn't he? If that's Stark's idea of a partnership, he knows even less about teamwork than I thought!"
Bruce shakes his head, bowed low in disappointment. "No. Later, you and I need to have a long talk about AI rights. Jarvis is as much a friend to me as Tony is. But for now, this is about Tony." He takes a deep breath before continuing.
"You think Tony doesn't appreciate being part of this team? Do you know how much trust Tony exhibits by strapping himself into the suit and letting Jarvis have his back? And before you tell me that that doesn't count, have you ever been stranded surrounded by people who don't understand you when you speak, have you ever had to make do with just the most rudimentary of translations before you put your life in the hands of those people?"
"France," says Steve, but Bruce has caught his attention. He's thinking now.
"But someone there could speak both French and English, and I'm betting you stuck close."
"It's not the same," Steve says, frowning in confusion. "Tony has spoken English all his life."
"No," says Bruce again. "Tony's learning, he can imitate the sounds humans make, but Steve, he still can't think in your language, and it would be a waste of time for him to try. His brain works the way it works and he gets a hell of a lot done. And if you think his language and yours aren't all that different, I want you to imagine that the main person you've ever heard speak is Howard Stark, and that you can understand perfectly what he means by everything that comes out of his mouth. From annealing temperatures and their effect on the structures of various alloys, to what qualities and processes make the best cheese or wine. Then tell me that it's easy. Tell me that he should be doing better."
Steve stares at Bruce, blinking as he thinks back to Howard, how the things he said confused a simple guy from Brooklyn.
"Yeah," Bruce says. "And now tell me that you don't understand why Tony comes to Jarvis with his problems first, and me second, even though you're team leader. You think he should connect more to the team, tell us when he's got something on his mind? He wants that too, but he wants someone who will understand."
Bruce takes a breath, lowers his voice to a more moderated level. "Steve, he wants someone who will get him when he says he feels like an illustration of quantum superposition, because his luck has been too good and he thinks if he looks too hard at whether his choices are likely to kill him, he'll break the charmed state of uncertainty he's been living in and it really will kill him. And the kicker is, he's never sure that wouldn't be for the best, so many people see him as dangerous and unstable and maybe they're right. Is that what you'd hear? Because he'd be pouring his heart out for you, saying that. He just wants to know someone hears."
Steve shakes his head, trying to shake off his confusion. "Is all that true? Does he really tell you all that?"
"Do you remember last week, the battle with Doom, when you told him to watch his back, do you remember what he said?"
"Not exactly," Steve admits.
"He said, 'I'm fucking Schroedinger's Cat here, okay, can't watch my tail or I'll stabilize permanently, and no one wants that, am I right?' You were there, Steve. What did you hear?"
Steve sucks in a breath. "I heard him telling me not to cramp his style."
Bruce nods. "I'm good at learning languages," he says. "I've had to be. So trust me when I say English is one thing and Tony Stark English is another, one you do not know."
"Okay," says Steve, after a moment of silence. "Can you help me learn? Just the basics."
Bruce smiles, shakes his head. "There are no basics," he says. "But I'll try."