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“No you have to tuck it over, under, and then through,” Bruce said with a stern emphasis.
Jake glared up at him with a slight twitch to his left eye, “Mi amigo, I was not serious when I said knitting.” Despite this, he was elbow deep in yarn and 20 minutes into a youtube tutorial that JARVIS had pulled up.
“ Shall I bring another tutorial, Jake?”
“ Trae mi culo,” Jake muttered, as he attempted to mimic the motions both Bruce and the young blonde woman on the screen were doing.
“ I'm sorry I wasn’t able to find a knitting video under ‘Bring my ass”.”
“JARVIS that’ll be all,” Bruce intervened, letting go of one of the knitting needles to wave in the air. The A.I seemed to get the hint and remained silent.
It didn’t take long for Jake to realize that knitting was likely not going to be his favorite hobby. By the time the video ended, Bruce had knit a small scarf with a flower in the middle. Jake, who followed the same tutorial, managed to create something resemblant to a Saw trap.
He pressed his head into his lap where the tangled yarn sat before sitting up with a groan. “When you said we should start doing a hobby, I thought you would mean kickboxing. I do not know where the yarn ends or begins. This feels harder than kickboxing. Does the Hulk do this?” The man lifted up his tangle of yarn and Bruce failed to hold back a small laugh.
“Okay, okay. Knitting is a no-go. There is a gym somewhere in the Tower we could go to, I don’t actually know where it is,” the doctor admitted.
Jake blinked a few times in response, “Was the yarn easier to find than the gym, my friend?”
Bruce laughed which only left Jake more puzzled by the interaction. “I’m partial to finding you a less anger-oriented hobby. Though, maybe baby steps.”
The scientist began to get off of Jake’s bed that the duo had been knitting on, seemingly ready to find the gym. “My steps are not baby,” Jake grumbled as he tossed the yarn into the corner. “I have large steps.”
The older man gave a smile of both intrigue and mild confusion but passed over the statement anyway. “So, to the gym?”
Jake folded his arms to his chest and shrugged his shoulders, “What would you suggest then if you think I should not fight as a hobby. I’m quite good at it.”
“I think that makes fighting already a hobby for you,” Bruce replied with an eyebrow raised.
“More like a job.”
Bruce sighed, “That’s why I want to find you something else.” Jake pursed his lips but nodded. “Do you like movies?”
Jake paused, eyebrows furrowed in thought before they relaxed as a thought was conjured, “Steven once made us watch Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. It felt very misleading because Madagascar is in Africa technically.” Bruce’s inability to pin this man’s personality down was carved into the lines of his forehead produced by his quizzical expression. Jake looked side to side in the room as the moment of silence dragged along. “I do not know if that counts as liking movies.”
“We could certainly try a…uh movie other than Madagascar?”
“Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa,” Jake corrected.
“Of course, my apologies. We could try a more action-oriented movie? Do you prefer to watch them in Spanish or English?” Bruce asked, glancing down at his phone through his small reading glasses in order to search for something the other could not make out.
Another question Jake had to ponder. “I do not know, I’ve never been given the option.”
“I have given you the option, you just said you didn’t like how the actor’s mouths moved differently with the voice-over,” Marc complained somewhere in their shared mind.
“It is annoying and distracting,” Jake answered out loud, arms still tightly crossed against his chest.
Bruce lifted his head from his phone which caused his glasses to slide a bit down his nose. “What is annoying and distracting?”
“Not you, my friend. Marc is being Marc.”
“What does that mean?” The American mumbled and caught Jake’s eyes as he stared into the reflection in the mirror behind Bruce.
The Avenger gave a nod and returned to scrolling on his phone. Sam had explained that the others forced him to switch from a flip phone to a touchscreen phone, needless to say, he wasn’t adapting phenomenally. Jake and Marc suspected the others enjoy the confusion a little. Bruce wasn’t necessarily old, hardly the oldest around if you counted Thor, but he certainly did act like it. Jake found it hard to believe a large green creature was just beneath the scientist’s skin.
“Well here, why don’t you tell JARVIS what you like and see if he can find something based on your interests,” Bruce suggested after giving up on the phone search.
Jake’s arms fell to his sides a bit as he shifted his weight from foot to foot, “For the movie or hobbies in general?”
“Up to you.”
The man grunted and decided to take a seat on the bed to think, elbows braced on his knees and jaw clenched as he focused. Marc seemed to not have any ideas and Steven wasn’t present so he thought and thought until his stomach rumbled a tad. Well, it wasn’t a sign from Khonshu or any other god, but it was something.
“Cooking?”
Bruce seemed to weigh the pros and cons mentally, but apparently, the pros won, “Sure why not. I uh, won’t be of much help but maybe we could learn together.”
Jake nodded but found the all too familiar frown soon settled back on his face as his mind wandered a bit. Why was Bruce helping him? Part of him thought it was the Avenger's ploy to get Moon Knight to join them. In some roundabout way, it likely was. It didn’t make sense to attempt to befriend Jake, however. Marc and Steven, sure given they were the ones fighting in their costumes.
“Why are you doing this?” Jake asked as he flipped the quizzical look back to the other.
Bruce’s silence carried for a few seconds. He stared at Jake at first before glancing back at the mirror behind him. “You remind me a lot of me. These are things I wish someone had been there for me to do. My situation is obviously, well different from yours as you know.” The man took his reading glasses and folded them up before returning them to his pocket on the front of his blue button-up shirt. “Besides, maybe I’ll pick up a hobby from it as well.”
Skepticism was basically Jake’s middle name at this point, but some part of his heart that wasn’t riddled with grief and soaked in anger wanted to believe Bruce. Maybe he could learn to. Maybe that therapist wasn’t wrong about finding people like him would help. The alter made a mental note to give Steven a subtle mention of it.
The duo walked down the hallway he had become well acquainted with that led down to the elevator. Jake and the others had been there bordering a week, the news was still rampant in their search for the vandals of the museum. Sure enough, as Marc had told them, the cameras showed the Avengers fighting Moon knight. This was not going to be something the system could easily recover from without laying low and Tony’s weirdly good PR team.
“What do you do here most days?” Jake asked as the elevator silently rose. “When you aren’t giving me yarn that is.”
The scientist gave a chuckle and briefly tucked his chin to his chest while doing so. “If I said talking to JARVIS would you think I’m crazy?”
“Yes,” Jake nodded without so much as blinking.
“I would’ve appreciated a little hesitation there.” Bruce rolled his eyes as the silver doors slid open to what seemed like a floor. “But I do in a way. Tony has a lab set up for me here that I utilize. I used to be in and out, but I’ve become a relatively full-time resident. JARVIS aids me in my research.”
Jake reached out and touched the metal of the closing doors as they pressed on which sent a shiver down his spine. Cold. It made him miss the gloves. The kitchen was higher up than the rooms Sam and Jake stayed in, yet there was somehow still a plethora of floors above them. All it needed now was a postal office and it was practically its own city.
The kitchen matched the high-tech and high-budget aesthetic of the rest of the tower. There were four fridges and too many cabinets to keep track of without spinning around like a madman.
“Was one fridge not enough?” Jake asked, opening one briefly to see the miscellaneous contents.
The older man shrugged as he ducked behind the island in the middle of the kitchen to grab what looked like a cutting board. “Tony is Tony. He acts like an asshole, but he helps me with my research and he’s nice if you squit your eyes and cock your head a bit.” He demonstrated the action a bit, which the other managed to smirk at.
“This research you do, what is it for?”
“Sustainable energy that is practical for everyday home use. Less toxic waste, less pollution, and well I guess it lets you ethically own four fridges,” Bruce joked as he began to grab other random kitchen supplies like pots, pans, and rolling pins.
The island countertop was beginning to look like either this was going to be the weirdest sex party Jake had ever attended or the weirdest torture Jake had ever received. “Does cooking always require this many utensils,” the man lifted up a potato peeler to inspect. This was familiar for probably not the right reasons.
Bruce silently gestured to the stuff on the table as if he also was just guessing at this point, “I like to be prepared for any…situation that might arise.” Another moment of silence passed as the two men stared at each other. “What do you like to eat, hmm? Or anything you want to try? We can have JARVIS pull up a recipe.”
Jake usually let Steven do the eating given the other had an affinity for both cooking and stress eating, which felt like a deadly combo. Marc also watched from the sidelines, but that was just due to Marc not fronting as often as he used to. The other alters had him try a plethora of foods while at the Tower, especially after they noticed the alter stepping forward a bit more. Steven’s heart was crushed as Jake tried beans on toast and nearly threw up in a trashcan. Marc seemed to approve of the dislike, however.
“Spaghetti never steered a man wrong,” Marc pitched as he likely sensed the void in Jake’s memories where food consumption should be. Jake glanced over to see the faint reflection in the stainless steel of the fridge and noticed the American’s eyes meeting his as well.
“Everything okay, Jake?”
“Spaghetti?” It was more of a question to Marc, but Bruce seemed to think that was the younger man’s answer to the question of the afternoon.
“ I hate spaghetti,” Steven tagged along with his own grumble.
“ That’s why I chose it.” Jake could somehow feel the shit-eating grin Marc was likely sporting. Needless to say, Steve and Marc definitely were off somewhere in his head debating the ethics of feeding an alter a food another alter hates. Jake felt like has trapped in the same body with two annoying brothers, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.
A rush of relief seemed to go through the Avenger’s body as the chosen food was a simple one. “That I won’t need JARVIS for. I’m probably going to shame the Italian parts of me, but the way I know to make it is simple. Are you vegan or vegetarian like Steven is?”
“I do not like beans,” Jake said sternly, very confident that he knew that for sure.
Bruce slowed down his movements of grabbing tomatoes from the fridge, “I don’t think there are beans in spaghetti so we should be alright.”
It was clear that Bruce was having a hard time fully grasping Jake as a person, but he seemed patient. Patience was not something many typically offered him. “I know what spaghetti is. We crush tomatoes, boil the pasta, combine, and add cooked beef.” As he verbally ran through the list, he waved his hands around to vaguely act out each of the steps.
Another small hesitation from Bruce, “That’s basically the idea of it. We will have to make the tomato sauce so it’ll be a tad bit more than smashing tomatoes if that’s alright.” He set three tomatoes still connected by a thick green stem on the cutting board as well as a small container of fresh basil. “I know we have some spaghetti noodles in the cabinets somewhere, do you want to find those while I get the water boiling?”
Jake nodded and set to work as if he had just received an order from Khonshu. The man opened and searched the cabinets thoroughly. A health inspector likely would have searched the kitchen cabinets with a lower intensity search, but Bruce wasn’t about to interrupt.
“ I never really liked spaghetti,” Steven repeated again as if it were a new fact that unintentionally startled Jake who elbows deep into one of the lower cabinets.
“You only like your beans,” Jake scoffed with a quiet tone so Bruce wouldn’t hear. If anything it sounded like the other was grunting from frustration.
Though Jake couldn’t see Steven, he could practically feel the tug of Steven placing his hands on his hips. “ I like more than beans. I like all sorts of foods, right Marc?”
Marc’s complete and utter silence made Jake crack a very rare smile as he pulled out of the cabinet. There were only a few more upper ones left. Bruce had filled up a medium-sized pot, likely sourced from the horde he created on the countertop earlier, with water and had set it on the stove burners. He took a salt shaker and dispensed some into the water and stirred.
“You cook with salt water?” Jake asked with his eyes slightly peeked out from behind an eye-level cabinet door.
“Trust me, it makes a difference. Rule number one of cooking pasta, you salt the water because the pasta will absorb it and it tastes better. Olive oil can be used as a plan B.” Jake slowly moved his head back out of view as Bruce finished.
Salt in water. Jake added that to his mental log as if having accepted a side quest. Thankfully, he managed to find a small yellow box of noodles shortly after. He tossed the box to Bruce who gave a small yip and managed to catch it.
“Found the noodles,” Jake said while giving a thumbs up.
Bruce gave an awkward smile as he set the tossed box onto the counter beside the stove, “I gathered that, thank you.”
Unfortunately, Jake mistook the other’s awkward smile. “If you do not like the pasta I cannot help you, it was the only box in the cabinet.”
“Hey no it’s fi-” Bruce found himself cut off before he could clarify.
“You asked me to get you the pasta, I gave you the pasta. If you wanted better pasta, you could have looked yourself,” Jake’s jaw had clenched tight. If not for his face, it would be impossible to tell if he was on edge because the rest of his body remained relaxed where he stood. “This is stupid, I do not know why we are even doing this.”
The burner clicked off as the scientist turned the dial down so it didn’t boil over while they talked, “Jake it’s okay you just startled me by throwing the box. It’s all right you did a good job.”
Marc chose that moment to speak up, “ Jake, let him help you .”
“Help me? ¿Ayudarme? I was fine how I was until you all decided I wasn’t pulling my weight.”
Bruce’s concern showed in the tense wrinkles of his forehead, but he didn’t step in yet as the alters seemed to be having their own discussion.
“That’s not why, Jake. You showed interest in fronting and we were here for you. This is a two-way street, man,” Marc was not the best at comforting, but he knew Jake better than anyone.
The kitchen remained silent in the early wakes of the afternoon. Jake felt Marc stay close by in his mind without saying another word and Bruce had yet to throw his hands in the air and give up. Stubborn people were the worst to be around, especially the good ones. The man stared at Bruce with a mixture of exhaustion and frustration with himself that expanded outwards. “I don’t think I can cook.”
Something flickered behind Dr. Banner's eyes before being filed away. “You’ll never know unless you try. The worst that happens is we find you something new. Failure isn’t a death sentence.”
Memories of the threats and demands Khonshu once gave them bleed into his vision like blood from a cut. Failure was a death sentence for as long as he could remember existing. He opened his mouth to try to communicate this, but the words never came. Eventually, he let his mouth close again. Bruce didn’t press for an answer but extended out the wooden spatula he was using to mix the pasta noodles out like an invitation.
Jake remembered when Khonshu had first propositioned him. Marc and Steven had just begun to grasp his presence and the god had fought tooth and nail for Jake to not realize he wasn’t alone as well. It worked, for a while anyway. He was offered the suit and an outlet for his frustration. His own frustration with who he was and the way his brain took longer to connect things than others could be expressed through the funerals of pedophiles, rapists, and whoever else Khonshu decided had reached their due date.
Each emotion was fighting a battle in his head as his eyes stayed trained on the outstretched spatula. It was more than an olive branch, it was Bruce saying that he was there for as long as Jake wanted him to be. At first, the scientist's constant urge to speak to Jake got on his nerves, but the man found himself never truly running away from him. It was too complicated. The kind man, having to learn to function like Steven and Marc did as if a toddler learning to walk, and nowhere for the anger bundled in his chest to go. It was easier being Moon knight’s personal Hulk.
His fingers wrapped around the arm of the spatula as Bruce transferred it to him. He had reached forward to meet halfway but found himself hesitant. Unlike him, Banner didn’t hesitate to take a step forward and meet Jake ¾ of the way. Jake didn’t know what he was feeling. Anger at himself? Anger at Bruce? Maybe even Steven or Marc. Maybe he was happy. The little emotions continued their battles behind his eyes, but this time a little quieter.
“Sometimes talking is too much,” Bruce says reassuringly as he angled his body back toward the pot on the stove. “Let’s just cook.”
That would have to be enough for now.