tushanshu | Video;

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[ The video begins with a dark-haired man centered in the middle of the frame. He’s got dark eyes, a precisely cut goatee, and hair that’s a little too styled to be naturally that neat. There isn’t a lot to see beyond his chin, he’s sitting too close to the camera, but what can be seen looks vaguely like a shirt of shiny red metal.

His brow knits almost immediately after the feed starts recording, his expression edging toward disbelief as his lips twist into a mild frown. ]

Look. I get it. In a time of crisis, rationing’s necessary to keep resources moving in the right direction. Perfectly understandable. You guys needed to save your turtle. What responsible citizen wouldn’t do their part for that noble cause?

[ There’s a slight hint f sarcasm creeping into his voice, as though he’s heard the whole turtle spiel already and not only hasn’t been impressed, but also doesn’t really buy it either. Not even after having spent half a day scouring the network for information about what’s really going on here before making this video. ]

But really? Twenty bucks?

[ The low, indistinct murmur of another voice can be heard, though what it’s saying and who it belongs to is anyone’s guess. Whatever it says, it’s enough to make the man roll his eyes. ]

Juulan. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. The point — [ Whether he’s talking to the camera or the unidentified voice is unclear. ] — is that it isn’t enough for a day, let alone the entire bogus adventure.

[ It isn’t so much the way he looks at the camera – his eyes have never left it – but the change of his tone, less querulous and more curious, that indicates that he’s talking to whoever’s on the other end of the console. ]

So really. Turtle propaganda aside. What’s a guy gotta do to get some decent money around here? Sell his organs? Hit the street corners? Scrub barnacles off the bottom of the turtle? What?

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[ The memories offer up a moment on the SHIELD helicarrier. Barely a few hours into knowing him, and he had spoken of the arc reactor with him in the careless way he never spoke about it with anyone. It had been a kind of trust and it had been repaid a thousandfold when he’d most been in need of it.

Whoever he is, if this man holds to the same tenants as the one the memories recognize, then he can at least trust him enough to speak a little more on the subject. ]

How do you reconcile it? Being a clone of someone else?

[ It feels like an admittance of weakness and it sticks in his throat, but he struggles to get it out. ]

How do you accept the memories as yours?

It isn't easy. [He hesitates, because this isn't easy, either, and forcing Tony to open up demands no less from him in response. Bruce has never liked it, even with someone he knows he can trust, and he has to struggle himself with what to say for a moment.

His gradual coping with the idea of being a clone had been convoluted, slow, and pained. It had happened behind the scenes, with him barely breathing a word to anyone, only short interludes where he'd revealed the intensity with which it affected him. But Bruce had never truly spoken of it, never voiced why and how it affected him.

He looks down, mustering the words.] I don't know if I've really accepted it now. When I change-- I don't remember what I do. Except for, sometimes there's, there's flashes. Violence. Pieces of memory that come back.

It's not the same, but you can't dwell on it. You have to just keep going. Sometimes the worst enemy you have is, is doubting yourself. Second guessing what your memories mean about who you are.

[Self-doubt has been like a tumor his entire life, a cancer that spreads through him and destroys him, cell by cell. It hamstrings him and removes his ability to fight, to keep struggling against the fears he has about who and what he is. Bruce doesn't often reach the end of his rope, doesn't often feel a surrendering of his will, but when he does, it's always because of that. Because of the voice whispering to him, insidious, that nothing he knows about himself is real.

He looks up.] I can't afford not to. I guess that's your answer.

Fake it until you make it?

[ He says it lightly, like it’s as much of a joke in this context as it’s been in any other that the memories offer up to him. But he’s not trying to be funny, however it sounds. Stark's faked a lot of things in his life. He's got an example of how to do it, practically gift-wrapped for him in his mind.

He doesn’t ask for help. Memories surface, reminding him of when he was dying and how he chose to suffer in silence, preferring to struggle to find a nonexistent cure without telling anyone or asking for any kind of aid whatsoever. He doesn’t get help when he needs it, the memories tell him. He never has, he never will, and asking for it is admitting to weakness he can never acknowledge.

But sometimes, all he needs is an example of strength. Something to motivate him into doing the unthinkable.

He meet his eyes and it’s hard. It’s very hard, but he trusts him, fake memories or not. ]

Make you a deal? I’ll remind you who you are when you need it if you remind me when I do.

[Bruce allowing someone else to remind him who he is is just couched terms for allowing them to have input on his self-defined identity. It's a privilege he extends to very few-- before now, essentially only Betty had had that distinction. Although it's not a declaration that he'd accept the input unconditionally, not at all, Bruce's innate unrelenting stubbornness makes any kind of consideration a noteworthy concession. How he sees himself is at the core of his most critical struggles, and it's what outlines his problems and successes with the Hulk, which is the prevailing, overriding issue of his existence.

But this is an even trade. He appreciates that Tony might not be quite as resolutely, bloody-minded independent as he is, but he's close. Bruce answers with a slight, quirked smile, trying to soften what he knows is a huge difficulty for both of them-- exposing weakness, on a projected continual basis. Truthfully, they need the safety net, both of them. If it won't be each other, then who are they going to rely on to do it instead? There's an underlying level of mutual understanding here that Bruce has rarely replicated elsewhere, and a lack of expectation that the other will change. Both points are crucial.]

Deal. [There's a beat, and then he huffs out a breath of self-conscious humor.] If we let each other. But we can try.

[ He gives him a crooked smile, not quite up to the standards of those he was tossing around when he walked into the lab, but it’s an improvement from the bleak sense of helplessness he’d been feeling. It is what it is. He can’t change it, he just has to deal with it. And he’s not alone. Whatever happens, whatever has happened, he isn’t alone.

Not anymore. ]

All right. Existential crisis averted.

[ Maybe not forever. Letting things go isn’t something that comes easily to him. But for the moment, he can push this aside and actually try to get something done that isn’t succumbing to a panic attack. ]

You wanted to do some work, right? That wasn’t on your laptop? Or did you want to put the suit on and take it for a spin?

[It might be less than the smile he'd had when he walked in, but Bruce thinks it's more honest. He takes it as accomplishment enough.

Letting them move on is probably the wisest choice.] What? No, I'm not taking it for a spin. [A slight roll of his eyes, and he walks over to examine whatever Tony had done to his laptop, giving him his personal space back.]

I think the highest priority right now is understanding the nature of the energy that runs this place. It's not strictly ... uh, scientific or magical. Some kind of combination. The tech here's a little weird.

Have you taken a look at the consoles yet?

[ He’s half tempted to press about the suit. It’s stupid and ultimately pointless, but it would be an entertaining distraction. Partial temptation isn’t whole, however, and he drops it to meander back toward the workbench. More mindful of personal space than he might otherwise be, he fetches up near the end and drums his fingers against the top of it. ]

The rejects from the Nineties or whatever they are? Yeah, I messed with mine when I got into the apartment.

[ And had been disappointingly unable to reconfigure it to do what he wanted it to do. Which shouldn’t have been possible, and yet it had eluded him. ]

What’s the deal? Is the rest of the tech in the city like that?

Yeah. It's more organic, and, I guess mystical in nature is the word I'm looking for, than laws of reality should really dictate. [The easy way Bruce says that, if slightly wry, reveals how much he's had to adjust to the revised ideas of technology and physics here.]

But there's another aspect here. [Bruce walks over to where the cobbled together satellite tech is standing out from the rest, visibly and undeniably far more advanced than anything else seen around Keeliai. There isn't much left-- this has been drained of power and is shut down, dead-- but its structure is still there, with an unlit readout panel as a display.]

There was a satellite that crash landed a few weeks ago, and what we salvaged from it looks like this. I had to piece this together for another purpose-- this is all I have left. [He nods down at it. The rest of what he and Stark Industries had had went to the PSDs, which were gone now.]

[ Crossing over to it, he examines what remains of the satellite, trying to fit the missing pieces in to get a sense of what it is. And more importantly, what purpose it served. His eyes are drawn to the panel, dead and lifeless and practically begging to be turned on so that he can extract its secrets.

He taps a finger against it, unsurprised when nothing happens. ]

So why not put it back together, power it up, and turn it on? See what it's for?

[ He says it like it should be a piece of cake to do it. To his mind, it is. All he needs to do is cobble the parts together and he can make a particle accelerator capable of reproducing the element glowing in his chest. So far, that's been able to power anything. ]

It's not the same kind of power, [he explains immediately.] When Tu Vishan had the worst of the illness, everyone lost their powers. Including me. And all the actual power went off, too.

This was the only stuff that still worked. I used what I could get from it to make devices to try to feed some energy back to the turtle, but it didn't work out quite the way I intended. It's all gone now. That's why I'm trying to look into the native energy sources here.

[ He looks at him blankly for a moment, wondering what powers he has to lose. As far as he recalls, Bruce has no powers. He's just a guy with a big green guardian angel on his shoulder.

Is that what he's talking about? He gives him a slightly squinty, considering stare before shrugging and letting it go. ]

I don't care if it's some kind of mystical amalgam or not, energy never disappears. It just changes. So we figure out where it goes when it changes and we change it back.

What have you found out so far?

[He hadn't started out using that term, but it was convenient shorthand around here, and he'd slipped into the habit because it allowed him to speak about his 'power' without saying what it was. Bruce doesn't really think of it that way, not at all. But he's made some concessions for the sake of keeping his privacy.]

Pretty sure it all goes to the turtle, and what we get comes from it. This thing, [he waves at the cobbled together device,] was showing me where the lines of energy transfer are. Not so much anymore.

The turtle keeps the superhuman abilities turned on, though, and it's probably the same energy as what powers the consoles.

Goes to it like it's drawn to it or like it eats it?

[ Normal turtles eat plants. He can't imagine what something the size of what they're living on eats. Energy, from the sounds of it. ]

You said it was sick at one point. Has there been a noticeable change in the available energy in the city since it's gotten better?

I have no idea what happens to it. Little hard to tell.

Well, the power's back on, [he says wryly.] I'd say it's noticeable. There's no real question that the sickness was affecting that-- we were on rationing, actual food rationing, for months.

Sounds like we ought to figure out how to generate more of it. If it affects how much food's available, it's more important than just making sure the kids with fancy toys still get to play with them.

[ He doesn't have superpowers. He's not really sure how he feels about this. ]

And to do that, we need to know what it's made of. You know anyone who knows anything about metaphysical... stuff? Or did those monks in Asia or wherever you hare off to teach you their guru skills?

[Bruce isn't that concerned about powers either, for obvious reasons. He'd be happier if they all stayed off permanently. And he agrees with this reasoning without question-- that's why he'd made the hydroponics garden.]

I'm not really into the spiritual side, [he says dryly, because if there's ever been anyone that was an atheist, it's him.] I got a couple connections when I was making this. I need to talk to them again.

I'm with you, but the turtle's such a vast energy source, it's sort of like trying to titrate a meaningful amount into the ocean...

[And then we handwaved the rest of science that happened for the day, and no more existential crises were had. For now.]

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