Ross wakes up. He rolls over and looks at me, "I have to thank you for saving my life again, don't I."
I shrug, "You could not. I didn't do it for the gratitude. Actually, I'm not sure why I did it."
He laughs, "You really don't like me. What did I do to you?"
"Nothing. Call it a sympathetic hatred on the behalf of someone like me." He questions with his eyes, "The Hulk."
"Like you? I don't see it. You've saved me, twice. Banner never saved anything except himself."
I shake my head, "Putting aside that you just made my single all-time least favorite assumption, what about Harlem?"
"We used Banner in Harlem. We put him in a position where his own survival depended on doing something we needed done."
"No. He could've just left. Creatures above a certain weight class don't automatically have an irresistible urge to fight one another. They still fight for a reason."
"Same reason as the Abomination, he enjoys it!"
I laugh, "He's been loose for years. Up until earlier this year he was a myth. That doesn't happen because he's attacking everything in sight. That happens because he's hiding. From you."
"Banner doesn't hide. He runs, like a co-"
My fist clenches, "Not. Banner."
He tilts his head at me, "What?"
I glare, "I'm not talking about Banner. I'm talking about the Hulk. How can you be so blind as to think that they could possibly be the same person?"
"Because they are! He transforms when he gets mad!"
"No. He doesn't transform. They switch. The body transforms."
"What difference does it make?"
I throw my hands up, "Oh my god! You are exactly the kind of person I avoided in my old life. You're so narrow-minded that anything that doesn't fit inside your little self-constructed boxes of existence can't possibly be real. So you hunt it down and box it up and poke it until it shows something you can latch onto as a category to stuff it in. Monsters! How could it be anything else! It's not human! What's human? Humans are normal! What's normal? Who the fuck knows!"
He's just staring at me.
I sigh, "Let me put this in simple terms. You come into this world in a scary lab filled with crazy equipment. Everything is small, and fragile. Accidents happen, right? Except from your first day of existence everyone you meet shrieks in terror simply because of how tall you are and how strange your skin color is. And then come the guns, and the bombs, and the tanks. And every time you stop someone from trying to hurt you, it's somehow your fault."
I take a breath.
"The Hulk is your mess. Not his. He didn't ask to get made. He needed your protection. And you attacked him. And you hated him. And you made Banner hate him! And that made him hate himself. And he doesn't even know why, or what he did. Because violence is the only language he knows, and he's constantly punished for it…That's what you did."
Ross looks me in the eye, "The Hulk has killed people."
I look right back, "You've killed more."
He doesn't look like he gets it. I need to explain more.
"Despite how much smaller and weaker and squishier you are, you've still managed to kill more. So either he's not a monster… Or you're an even worse one."
He shakes his head, "That was war. I fought to protect my country, and my daughter."
"You declared war on the Hulk a long time ago, so what exactly is the difference? You fight to protect the things you care about. The Hulk is doing the same thing."
"How can you sympathize with it?"
"Because I used to be just like him. Trapped in someone else's body. Treated like a monster whenever I took the chance to show myself for what I was. Sympathy isn't hard, if you're willing to give up your monsters to do it. This world has monsters enough without us turning on each other."
I think the only reason he's still listening is because I saved his life. But he is listening.
I don't know why I'm trying with this guy, but maybe an olive branch is called for, "I've seen your file. You're a good General. Maybe the best of our time. You almost brought down the Hulk, several times, using conventional military fare. That's damned impressive. If you were actually fighting something malevolent?" Point at our guards, "Like these guys? We might have stopped them already."
He's finally looking conflicted, "Maybe I could have made a difference somewhere else. But that's not my job. I'm not a hero. I'm a soldier. I saw a threat to my nation, and I took action."
"Which time?"
He looks at me, "Excuse me?"
"You were one of the people who saw Superman as a threat, right? And that made you push to fund Super Soldiers, and that made the Hulk. And then you saw the Hulk as a threat, so you made Blonsky."
He sinks back against the wall, "You're saying I spent so much time looking for monsters that I finally found one."
That sounds like a breakthrough to me.
I try to reassure him a little, "There are true monsters in this world. I know a guy who can introduce you, once we get out of this."
"How can you be sure we will?"
I sigh, "Because we didn't die in the breakout, and that's what would've done it if we were going to here." He looks unconvinced, "Also, I'm friends with a god."
