by Nicole Field
The questions kept coming. What was he going to do now? Where had he come from? How did the people in his 'real' life feel about his transformation?
At best, Leo's answers to these questions were vague. At worst, he came back with answering rhetoric until the conversation moved on.
Before long, the show had viewers on the phone calling in with their own questions. Bruce saw Leo focusing in on the cameras to talk directly with the viewers, and wondered where his roommate had picked that kind of thing up. Sure, the hosts were doing it, but this was Leo's first time on television.
If Leo was worn out long before the interview was done, he never showed it.
"Thank you for coming and being on our show this morning, Captain Hart. It's been a pleasure." The male host was the first to shake Leo's hand. Leo leaned forward and kissed the female hosts on the cheeks. It made for a good finale.
Once again, Leo turned to the cameras, saluted, and then walked off the stage. Walking towards him, Leo met Bruce's gaze and gave a curt nod, which Bruce returned with a small smile.
Chapter Five
"Oh god. Really?"
There was a small party of people standing outside of their place when they returned. Leo shook his head. He was still in the Captain Hart costume from the interview that morning. A couple of squeals outside the cab they were in indicated they'd been spotted.
"Do you want me to drive around the block or something?" the cab driver asked.
Bruce didn't know what good that would do, but it was interesting that this sort of thing happened enough that the driver had a contingency plan.
What a strange world.
"No," he said, after a glance at Leo. "Here's fine."
The silent look of desperation that Leo shared with him said everything about their current situation. How was he supposed to keep a secret identity if they saw Captain Hart walking into their house? People could easily look through the windows. It wasn't as if Leo was going to walk around all the time in his Kevlar costume.
Bruce offered him a sad smile. "Maybe this is the price for being on television." He wanted to shrug, to indicate he didn't mind too much, but he didn't want to belittle everything Leo was no doubt feeling right then. "Unless… do you want to drive around the block?"
The cab driver was already slowing down, but he shot them a look through the rear-view mirror.
Leo pressed his lips together. He mouthed, Laundromat, and Bruce nodded his response. There was a place, only about two blocks away. He didn't think he'd ever seen a person inside.
After giving the cab driver his new instructions, the taxi sped up again. Some of the people standing outside of their house started running after the cab. Thankfully, they couldn't keep up. Outside the Laundromat, Bruce pulled out cash to pay the driver for his trouble. Then the two men quickly moved inside. Leo didn't even look over his shoulder to see if the cabbie had driven off before he started shedding his clothes.
"This seemed like such a good idea this morning," he said, quickly. "How did they find out where we live?"
"There were…" Bruce paused, looking away from Leo as he was down to his tight boxer briefs. It didn't seem right to look. "People found out after the Battle of Washington. Things died down after you were gone for a month, but now that you're back…" Bruce left the sentence unfinished.
Leo didn't say anything, just reached out to one of the driers, pulled it open, and grabbed jeans and a top from inside. They plainly didn't fit him. He went on to the next drier.
"How do you feel about going out for lunch?" Leo asked, after he'd found clothing that approximated his height and build and would mask his appearance from most cursory glances.
"Lunch out sounds like a great plan," Bruce agreed.
*~*~*
The Mexican restaurant they ended up at was airing reruns of The Morning Show. They only noticed after Leo and Bruce picked the furthest corner up the back where they could eat their meal in privacy.
Their waitress was a young woman who walked up to them with a knowing smile and two menus. "I'm Heidi. I'll be your waitress for this afternoon. You just let me know when you two want to order anything," she said with a wink.
"Thanks," Leo said dully, his head already lowered to his menu, the bag containing his costume on the floor between their legs. Only after she had gone did he put the menu down. "I gotta figure out how to sort this," he said. "Either I'm the hero who's hiding from the public he saved, or…"
"Or you hug puppies and kiss babies with your fans," Bruce finished for him.
"Not funny," Leo said, though his lips twitched, just a little bit.
That was enough encouragement for Bruce. By the time the waitress next came to their table, the two of them were laughing freely.
Heidi looked at them as though she wanted to be in on the joke.
Still smiling, Bruce shook his head to indicate that the jokes were too convoluted to share. He ordered them both large meals after having seen the way Leo'd been eating since his return. "And a lemon margarita each," he finished, decisively.
Heidi wrote all this down, then went back to the server's section.
Leo glanced at Bruce. "I don't really have all that much money right now…" he started, looking incredibly awkward.
"Don't worry," Bruce told him. It was the first time they'd laughed together like this since he'd returned. He smiled warmly. "It's on me."
*~*~*
After some laughs, full stomachs, and an idea of how Leo was going to address the crowd at theirs, it was a letdown when they got home to find there was no one left.
The Internet, on the other hand, was a completely different story.
"Holy hell," Leo said, running a hand through his shorter hair as Bruce turned the computer his way. "People were really that worried I was gone?"
"Or they're that happy that you're back," Bruce replied.
"People I've never met?" Leo asked sceptically.
There were people of all genders professing their undying love to Captain Hart and their relief that he'd come home safe. There were tears and postulations over how perfect it was that he'd come back so close to the commemoration date.
Leo opened up his own computer, logging into his email.
"Oh, Christ," he said, turning Bruce's attention back to him. Over Leo's shoulder, Bruce saw more than three times the number of unread emails than just the day before.
Leo started clicking down through the list as though in shock. He was in the middle of reading another invitation to talk on television when his cell rang.
"Unfamiliar number," Leo murmured. He answered it, turning away from Bruce to speak. Though Bruce did his best not to eavesdrop on the conversation, it became obvious that he was talking to another news rep.
*~*~*
"Had a smartass driver," Leo said, as he came back to their home and a slam of the door behind him. "Asked why I didn't just fly home."
"I'm sure that really invited a lengthy answer," Bruce responded. It was a week and a half later. Things still didn't feel normal between them, but Bruce kept trying.
"I also got this."
A letter dropped down onto Bruce's keyboard. Bruce craned his head around to get a good look at Leo, before reaching out to unfold the bit of paper that had been dropped in front of him. A letter, he realized. Handwritten.
His feeling of confusion grew. "Fan mail?" he asked.
"Something else," Leo said, sitting down, his legs apart. He only lifted his chin without further words.
His eyes goggled. He held the paper in front of him as though it was somehow contaminated.
"You can't take this seriously," he said.
"Can't I?" Leo's eyes looked tired. He hadn't even bothered taking off his costume to have this conversation. Usually he couldn't wait to get out of the outfit. "It's a pretty sick joke otherwise."
"Yeah, but…" Bruce flapped the paper around in an attempt to show its unimportance. "Anybody could have written this."
Leo's arms were c
rossed, one hand against his lower lip. He nodded once, but Bruce's words didn't seem to change his mind.
"I mean, any person with more nerve than sense could have made sure this got to you. I mean, someone writes, You didn't get them all, and you just, what? Jump? That's crazy, Leo." Bruce willing Leo to hear the words he was saying. "We don't know anywhere near enough to take action right now. Let's keep our eyes and ears open, and—"
"What if someone gets hurt? Killed?" Leo demanded. "These are the stakes we're talking about here!"
Bruce paused, staring back at his old friend. "I know that," he said quietly.
"Do you?" Leo asked, echoing his own words from just the week before. "Because while we're sitting around doing nothing, people could die. Isn't it worth acting now to curb that off chance?"
"Fine," Bruce said. "What are you going to do? It's not like this note is filled with information."
Leo gave a growl of frustration. "I'll do what I've just come back from doing. There are plenty of rural towns that weren't on the ship's map. I'll start with the ones closest and circle out."
"And be gone for another month? Longer?"
"What do you suggest I do, Bruce?"
"You know what I'd suggest! This is the exact same thing as last time. I'm urging you to stop, think. This note doesn't say anything about the aliens' sinister plans any more than it says where you're going to find them. It's a bigoted assumption you're making against the aliens right now, and you're better than that." Bruce breathed heavily as he bit those last words out.
"I'm better than that." Leo spoke back to Bruce in a rough, low voice.
"Yes," Bruce said, on an exhausted sigh.
"Even though I've done these things before. You still think I'm better than that?"
"I think you acted on desperation and didn't have time to think before," Bruce told him slowly. "One set of actions doesn't dictate everything about you."
Leo paused for long enough that Bruce thought perhaps he was changing his mind.
"I still think this is the right action to make," Leo told him.
Bruce stared at his friend for a long moment, hoping against hope that there would be something else he would say. Something that would soften the statement.
When Leo just stared back at him with that stubborn bent to his jaw, Bruce had to ask him, "Do you? Or is this just another knee-jerk reaction?" He shook his head. That was too harsh. He didn't want to sound harsh. Bruce tried to appeal to him from a more emotional place. "I don't want to see you put yourself in danger again. You don't even know what you're walking into."
"Fine."
It didn't sound fine, and Bruce knew it wasn't, but it was the first hope he'd had that Leo was still willing to listen to him on this, so Bruce bowed his head and accepted the statement as it stood.
"We'll wait until we have more information," Leo added. The next look he gave Bruce before he walked towards him to take the letter was sour. "But if people die because of this, it's on your head too."
Chapter Six
Bruce didn't know why Leo insisted on Bruce coming along with him to these public ventures. It wasn't like they'd been getting along lately. Bruce had almost thought Leo would prefer the time to get out of the house and away from Bruce.
And yet, they'd had that moment in the restaurant after his stint on The Morning Show. And Bruce being here was obviously still important to Leo, otherwise he wouldn't have asked. While there was still a chance of breaking past this infuriating wall between them, Bruce was still determined to try.
The two of them left their house an hour before the planned meet up time in the park. Bruce foolishly thought that that would mean they'd arrive earlier than anyone else. He was wrong.
They'd just reached the edge of Quincy Park when they saw a host of tents. Some people hadn't even pitched tents and were just lying on the ground. There didn't seem like there was any particular organization to it, but most of the park was covered with people.
Leo, however, seemed as though he was starting to get a handle on his apparent stardom. He already had the ready smile up in place and began outpacing Bruce. Bruce let him do so without much attempt to remain by his side
Before long, there were squeals of excitement and, just like that, the campground was awake, with much of it surrounding Captain Hart and peppering him with questions. When Captain Hart raised his hand, this crowd quieted.
"I am humbled by this amazing show of support." Somehow, his voice rose above the level of everyone else. "Thank you all for coming out here."
Trying to stay apart from it all, Bruce still found himself staring in the direction of his roommate. It had honestly never occurred to him to be jealous of Leo's suddenly perfect skin. But this? Public speaking with such a smooth, even voice? Bruce had been speaking with his current voice since it had finally evened out at age sixteen. Leo's had gone deep overnight. Bruce had had a fear of public speaking for his entire adult life. But Leo? That was just another one of his many superpowers.
"I know you've all come to see me today, and you've all no doubt got plenty of questions. And I will do my best to get to all of them. But first, some ground rules."
Bruce listened as he laid out how it was not acceptable to loiter outside of his house, to follow him, to track down his private numbers or email. From anyone else, it might have sounded like a dare, or else a stern talking down from a paternal figure.
Not from Leo. Captain Hart. His eyes were crinkled with a smile that said that he would have done the same thing in their shoes, but that time was over now.
"There will be other meet-and-greets. You are the reason I took down that ship. All of you. And I want to spend the time to get to know all of you."
Bruce had no idea how he was going to manage that. If his charisma held, and Bruce had no reason to think that it wouldn't, there would be even more people showing up to one of these next time. There would be more questions to go through. Add that to the television segments, and it was starting to look like an incredibly busy schedule.
But, again, Captain Hart managed to surprise him. And Bruce realized it was Captain Hart he was watching, not his best friend Leo. He was a more confident man in the costume—even without the mask—and for all that he dragged it off as soon as he walked through the door.
"Where did you come from?" a girl asked.
Everyone here had come to hear Captain Hart speak. Yes, they had questions, but they listened readily to his answers.
"I grew up in Brooklyn," he started. "With my mum and dad. I was eighteen when I moved out of home and went to college with my best friend."
Bruce smiled and looked to his shoes at his roommate's oblique reference.
"After we graduated from NYU, we moved here."
Captain Hart waxed poetic about the importance of the capital city of the United States, which easily led into questions about the Battle of Washington, and the reasons he'd dived into it.
"When you've got powers, like I have, I think it's the wrong thing not to do something with them," he said, with that comfortable smile that made them all equals in the conversation.
"Did it feel good to kill all those aliens?"
"No." It wasn't the expected answer. Bruce startled to hear it. In every interaction they'd had up till now, he'd maintained that he felt no regrets for what he'd done. Captain Hart's gaze found Bruce's over the crowd, and Bruce had the feeling as though he was being spoken to specifically. "I didn't feel good to kill them. But it had to be done."
Bruce's lips parted. It was the acknowledgement he'd been searching for in all the arguments they'd had since he'd come home. It was the answer Leo would have given before all of this had begun.
"But they were the bad guys!" the same guy said.
Bruce struggled to locate the individual in the crowd, but he didn't move his gaze from Captain Hart's for too long. Captain Hart too hazarded a gaze towards the speaker. His answer was slow in coming, but when it did, it made Bruce warm with pleasure.
&n
bsp; "We didn't share a language, and they were in a ship hovering over the White House. When I got into their ship, I saw the plans they had for Earth. That didn't make them the bad guys. But what they were planning made them dangerous to us."
Again, Bruce was struck with the feeling of having a private conversation with his best friend in the middle of this crowd. He offered a smile towards Leo, and hoped that it succeeded in conveying all the feelings he had right then. There would be time for them to talk later.
Captain Hart turned away from the guy who looked ready to ask more questions in the same vein.
"What were you like before you had your powers?" came another question.
For the first time at the meet-and-greet, Captain Hart paused. Bruce felt him searching for Bruce's gaze in the crowd and shifted so that the movement would catch his eye. Bruce nodded, and offered his best friend a smile. This was the best way to do it. Not in the middle of a talk show, surrounded by cameras and a cheering audience.
Captain Hart broke eye contact first.
"I was trying to find out who I was. I never felt like I fit in. I had this idea of how I wanted to be seen," he said. "It involved strong arms to go with my strong mind. Broad shoulders and a long stride. I wanted to be heard when I spoke, because I was pretty sure that I wasn't. I wanted to be a man."
Bruce watched Captain Hart's speech intently. He wasn't finished yet.
"So, in answer to your question," Captain Hart said, with a nod towards the questioner, "I was none of these things, and wishing that I was."
There was a long silence after that, the sound of a group of waiting for a punch line.
"You weren't a man because you were still a boy?" someone asked loudly.
Captain Hart turned his head to look at the speaker. "No. I wasn't a man because I was a girl." He didn't shy away from the speaker's gaze.
Bruce was so proud of him. He could understand why Leo hadn't come out on TV, in front of those commentators at The Morning Show. This was better. More personal.
"I'm transgender. When what happened to me happened, the transformation turned me into a man. Just like I always wanted to be on the outside."