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Bruce wakes up slowly. Soft is the first thing to register, then quiet, then naked. He blinks open his eyes to take in the dim room. It’s his room, which feels new and novel after all the years of waking up so far from home. He is on his couch. He is filthy with dirt and drywall and what must be insulation, because he doesn’t think anything he did was fun enough to cover him in cotton candy.
“Hey, is that you waking up?” Bruce follows the voice with his eyes and sees Steve sitting on a chair, tablet in hand. “If not, feel free to keep sleeping.”
He swallows, throat dry. “Yeah, I’m up.” He pushes himself up to a seated position, the blanket over him pooling in his lap and the blanket under him scrunching uncomfortably. “What...what did I do?”
Steve’s voice is matter-of-fact. “You went through a building. Well, a lot of buildings.”
“Did I hurt anyone?”
“You didn’t punch Thor, so that’s an improvement.”
Even with all of his rage burnt out of him, he still feels a tiny flare of anger. “That isn’t what I asked. Did I hurt anyone?”
Steve sets his tablet down on the end table. “No one on purpose. There were injuries when you took the buildings down, but nothing that looks fatal.”
“Goddammit.” It wasn’t any better. Knowing he’d turned on purpose, to do good, didn’t make it better. If he wasn’t even safe when he was trying to help….
“Hey.” Steve moves to sit on the coffee table, facing Bruce. “This is better than Manhattan, certainly better than Harlem. You can’t expect the control to happen all at once.” He pauses. “No one is mad at you, Bruce.”
“Why not?” he hisses. “They should be. None of those people deserved to be my collateral damage.”
Steve presses his lips together. “Alright, maybe some people are mad at you, but I think them them being alive to feel that anger is what you need to be focusing on.”
He doesn’t mean to do it, but Bruce finds his hands clenching into fists. “Stop talking to me like I’m a child. Everything is not perfectly fine just because you say it is. People are hurt, people lost their homes or their offices or what-fucking-ever I steamrolled and it is. Not. Okay.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” Steve’s voice is almost, almost calm. “You did the best you could. I know that, even if you don’t.”
“It wasn’t enough. It’s not...people’s lives aren’t a sliding scale. The best I can isn’t enough.”
Steve reaches out reaches out for Bruce’s hands, pries his fingers open. There are angry red gouges on his palms where his nails dug in. “If it makes you feel better to get all that out, keep going, but I’m drawing the line at you hurting yourself. This,” he shakes Bruce’s hands a little, “doesn’t fix anything, and you know that.”
He tries to pull his hands away, but Steve’s grip is too tight. “It isn’t your line to draw.”
“You know, I kind of think it is.” Steve laces their fingers together. “I need you to talk to me.” It is the hint of fear that gets Bruce’s attention. “What do you need me to do here? Am I supposed to yell at you, tell you how awful you are? Are you trying to get me to...to punish you?”
Bruce freezes. The images overlap, memory and imagination-- Steve slaps him across the face. He curls on the floor to try to protect his ribs from a belt. He’s shoved over the table. Don’t cry they’ll only hit harder. He deserves it.
Steve takes a deep breath, lets it out. He does not see Bruce’s eyes gone blank. “I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if I can do that. I’ll try it, if you really think that’s what it’ll take for you to feel better. I’ll do it, but for you. Not for me. Not for someone’s sprained ankle or busted dinette set.” His voice gets very, very quiet. “Do you want me to hit you?”
“No,” and his voice cracks and he is so ashamed, but no matter his guilt, he is not walking back into that hell willingly. “No, I really really don’t.”
“Oh thank God,” and Steve shots across the gap between them to hold him tightly. “It would have killed me.”
Bruce sighs through his stupid, desperate tears. “I’m sorry. I hate this. I hate being like this.”
Steve slides forward, encouraging Bruce’s arms to go around his neck. “I know. Let me take care of you, baby.”
Before he can really process, Steve’s picked him up, and he seizes on the smallest thing before the enormity of the gesture destroys him. “Baby?”
Steve blushes, but starts carrying him across the room. “It slipped out.”
“No, I….” The joke is somehow serious now. “I could like it.”
Steve smiles shyly at him. “Yeah?” They enter the bathroom and he places Bruce gently in the tub. “C’mon. You’ll feel better when you’re clean.”
The water fills hot and fast, and Bruce makes a mental note to thank Tony for that sometime, because he does feel better already. Steve kneels next to the tub and dabs at Bruce’s dirty face and swollen eyes with a washcloth. He lifts a hand to help, but Steve pushes it back into the water. “Nope. None of that. You just sit there.”
“You don’t have to…” Even Bruce can hear how weak his protest sounds.
Steve kisses him soundly. “I know. I want to.” He squeezes shampoo into his hands. “I like taking care of you. It would make me so happy if you let me.”
Bruce closes his eyes obediently as Steve starts working on his hair. “I...really cannot bring myself to argue with that.”
Steve’s hands spread around to cup the back of his head. “Good boy.”
And Bruce leans hard into his hands, relishing the nails lightly scratching his scalp and the warmth that blooms in his chest every time Steve tells him that. “I love you,” he says, feeling small and helpless and easy to manipulate and above all safe.
“I love you too. Tilt your head back?”
Bruce complies, and warm water flows over his head, rinsing away the suds. It might be the best thing he’s ever felt. Pity that it took him having a meltdown to get it. “I’m sorry I made you mad.”
Steve lifts one of Bruce’s arms out of the water to rub it with the washcloth. “Not mad. Just worried that you needed something I couldn’t give you.” His voice is carefully matter-of-fact. “I don’t want to hurt you. Pain doesn’t get me off.” He pauses. “Wait. When I tie you, or have you kneeling, is it...”
“No. No no no.” Bruce opens his eyes to smile at him. “It’s stress, but not really pain. It’s not...violent.” He blushes. “I like it.”
“I aim to please.” Steve kisses his head.
Bruce allows Steve to lift his other arm. “So, what is it that does get you off in all of this?” They’ve discussed it before, but it’s mostly been in terms of Bruce’s wants, limits, fears.
Steve takes a deep breath. “I do like the control. I like that you give it to me, that you trust me like that. I like knowing that I’ve given someone pleasure.” He smirks. “I love it when I make you ask for something and you squirm and you hate me for it, but you do it anyway because I asked you to.”
Bruce snorts. “Yeah, I’ve noticed.”
Steve moves his hands to Bruce’s back. “Lean forward for me.” Bruce does, and feels the soap moving across his shoulders. “You really did scare me, though. I...your file. Before we ever started this, I read it. There’s--”
“I know.” Bruce swallows hard. “I know you’ve read it, and I know what it says, and I really do not want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” Steve is still rubbing slow circles on his back with the washcloth. “I just need you to know that I’m never going to think that you deserve to be treated like that.”
Bruce knows that he has all of Steve’s attention, and that if he gave the slightest indication that he needed something, Steve would probably dive into the tub fully clothed. But he thinks about what Steve said, the sweet parts and the sexy parts, and he thinks that the least he can do is try. “I would really like you to hold me. Would you come in here? Please?”
Steve absolutely beams. “Of course. But no funny business. I mean it.”
Bruce smiles crookedly. “I don’t think I’d have the energy for it.” He watches Steve undress, feeling his heart caught in his throat until finally, finally Steve sits down behind him.
“C’mere.” Steve wraps his arms around him, pulling him back and resting his hand on Bruce’s hips. “Is this what you wanted?”
“Yeah.” Steve is holding him up, making sure he doesn’t slide down under the water. All he has to do is lay there. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Any time.” Steve might say more than that, but Bruce can’t be sure because he is drifting, floating away, falling asleep cradled in warm water and strong arms, clean and protected and loved.