It has never made sense to me how mean people can be. On one of my other fics, someone was mad at how I had written things out and implied I was stupid for writing it that way and they're not going to read anymore. Like...I don't fault you for that opinion. You do you. But why are you telling me this? What is this supposed to help or change? You are lashing out like a child, ma'am, and I'M the one getting hurt. I don't want to deal with that shit. I write to have fun, not to cater to everyone else's desires.
So if you don't like this fic - or any fic, by any author - just quietly leave. You don't need to say anything. Everyone would PREFER that you didn't say anything. We don't need that kind of negativity, especially considering how many of us have anxiety and your comment could send us away from writing, the very thing we use TO DEAL with said anxiety.
In short, don't be a dick. If you're already a dick, stop it.
Now, for all of you lovelies who are perfectly wonderful and respectful people, I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Deadpool finally reappeared in Peter's life twenty-six days after he'd seen him last, just when Peter was beginning to wonder if he should be concerned about the mercenary and his absence. He hadn't realized how much he'd begun to worry until he saw the familiar katana-bearing figure in red and black appear on the roof he sat perched on the edge of and he found himself breathing a sigh of relief.
"Hiya, Spidey!" Deadpool greeted cheerfully, plopping down beside him and dropping two boxes of pizza between them. He opened one and took out a cheesy slice, and Peter followed suit, shoving his mask above his mouth to take a big bite. With his free hand, he gave Deadpool a wave of greeting.
"Anything exciting happen in my absence?" Deadpool went on, showing his usual horrendous disregard for any kind of manners as he talked through the food stuffed in his mouth. Peter waved his hand in a so-so motion in response. "Don't lie to me, Spidey – I heard about a giant Rufus terrorizing Manhattan!" Peter was amused that Deadpool had given the mole rat the same name that Iron Man had, but he was not in the least bit surprised.
Deadpool continued, "And you – and the Avengers – were right in the thick of it! Although I told Bathsheba that I bet you did most of the work. Bathsheba is a quite lovely black bear that I met in Ukraine. Funny story how I met her, actually – involves a mercenary rival, a dreidel, and a tube of cherry chapstick. When I forget the story later, just remind me of those things and I'll remember what story I was going to tell. I have a surprising amount of Russian black bear stories, believe it or not, and I might accidentally tell you about the gig in '09 if you don't remind me of those things I just mentioned.
"But anyway, I said to Bathsheba, when I heard about your little foray with Rufus, I said – that's my baby boy swinging through, saving the day! Or, night. Because it was dark. Of course I YouTubed it as soon as I was within wifi again. It's kinda crazy how many people just stand by to video the destruction rather than running away from the thing hell-bent on killing them, but fuck – who am I to talk? But I saw multiple angles, pieced together the whole fight. Way to go, Spidey! Glad that fucker is dead, may Ron Stoppable forgive my everlasting soul.
"And it was cool that you were carried off by the Falcon! New guy, but like – still an Avenger, and that's cool. Didn't see you after that. You're alright though, right? He didn't carry you off to try and figure out your identity, or test your blood for your spidey powers, did he? He didn't have all the rest of the Avengers gang up on you?"
Peter paused somewhere in the last part of Deadpool's rambling, suddenly receiving the epiphany that this rambling was not the usual mindlessness that the man treated everything else with. The entire purpose of this all was to come and figure out if Peter was still okay – if he was still safe. It made something warm rise in his chest, but he quickly shoved down the feeling. He couldn't afford to actually get close to Deadpool. Everyone who got near him died – he was cursed. And Deadpool may not be able to be killed, but he could certainly feel pain.
But, a voice in the back of Peter's mind whispered to him, it may already be too late to ward off friendship with the man. He was in too deep already.
He shoved that voice away though, and gave Deadpool a thumbs-up. He tilted his lips upward into a smile, because the mercenary would actually be able to see it this time, with his mask pulled up. Deadpool paused to scrutinize him for a moment – probably for signs of dishonesty, that he wasn't really okay – before he nodded and took a nonchalant bite from his pizza.
"Good," the man said decisively. "'Cause you know I'll skewer anyone who tried it, Spidey. I wouldn't even have to kill them – I can keep your non-lethal rules and everything. I'll just poke him a bit. A small maim. A minor dismemberment. You know."
Peter laughed a bit, more an exhalation of air through his nose than anything else, but he didn't stop his friend the guy from rambling on about whatever he wanted to as they continued to eat their way through the two boxes of pizza.
A bit later, Deadpool clapped his hands together to brush off the crumbs, and then swiped his hands on his thighs to rid them of excess grease.
"Think I can patrol with you again, Spidey-babe?!" Deadpool said, unable to hide his excitement at the prospect as he jumped to his feet and pulled his mask back down to cover his entire face once again. Peter found the random thought stray through his mind that he wondered what color the man's eyes were, before he shook himself and lifted a hand to give Deadpool another thumbs-up – probably his most used method of communication, when he thought about it.
In retrospect, Peter realized that to Deadpool, it looked like he was raising his hand in a request for help up. At the time though, he was startled at the unexpected grasp of the larger hand over his much skinnier wrist, and because he couldn't expect and prepare for the touch, it was impossible to hide the instinctive, full-body flinch of pain when the hand pressed against his inflamed spinneret through the suit.
It wasn't a jerk – it was hardly even noticeable. Just a flinch. But still, it was enough for Deadpool, the man who caught everything, and he instantly pulled his hand away, back to himself, releasing Peter in the process.
"Sorry, Spidey," Deadpool said, but his voice was just a bit off, sounding a bit cold and barely hiding the hurt underneath. "Didn't realize you didn't want me to even touch you."
Peter jerked at the words, at the thinly veiled accusation underneath. He jumped to his feet and waved his hands a bit, shaking his head frantically. He knew, based on some of the offhanded remarks that Deadpool made about himself, that he had a very low opinion of himself. Thinking that Peter – Spiderman – the very person he'd decided was his friend, would be disgusted at the touch of a mercenary like him…that would be painful to bear. And it was entirely untrue and he didn't want Deadpool closing himself off, because he was probably the person that Peter liked most in the world now, with everyone else gone, and if Deadpool left too…
So, it was without a thought for his identity or his pride when he stepped closer to Deadpool, where he was just beginning to turn to walk away, and he grabbed his arm in one hand, using just a bit of his super strength to keep him from escaping. While keeping the grip on Deadpool's arm in one hand, he yanked up the sleeve of his suit to that hand with the other, and then released his grip to practically shove his arm in Deadpool's face.
"Holy shit, Spidey," Deadpool breathed when he finally saw what Peter was so insistent on showing him. He stopped trying to turn away, turning his full attention to Peter's exposed forearm and wrist. He reached out, stopping just shy of actually touching Peter again. "That doesn't look like drug tracks. What the hell happened?" His hand touched underneath his arm, gently, like he was afraid to touch any of the red on the exposed side.
Peter shrugged a bit, not really sure how he was supposed to explain to Deadpool that his body was just trying too hard to keep him alive and running at 500% and he didn't have enough consistent fuel to make sure his webs and spinnerets were functioning correctly.
"Wait a second," Deadpool said, and Peter felt a bit worried at the realization in the man's voice as he brought Peter's arm closer so that he could see it better. "Is that – is that where your webs come out?!"
Peter wasn't sure what to make of the horrified fascination so clear in Deadpool's words and tone, but he nodded in confirmation anyway.
"Well, shit, I thought you made them – had wrist shooters, or something," Deadpool muttered distantly. He looked up at Peter, keeping his arm in his grasp while looking in his face with the white eyes of his mask. "What happened? Is this why you don't swing anymore? Do they just – not work anymore? Shit, are you losing your powers?"
Peter wasn't sure how else to reassure Deadpool that his powers were still intact except by using them, so, bracing himself for the pain, he pointed his free wrist at the other side of the roof. The web shot out as expected, and he grimaced only a bit at the pain, having expected it this time.
With a gesture at the other arm, he faked a few coughs, explaining as best as he knew how that he was sick. It wasn't exactly correct, but that's as much as he was willing to share with the mercenary, maybe-friend or no. If he was lucky, he'd be able to go the rest of his career as a minor without anyone knowing he was homeless. If he was even luckier, no one would ever find out that Spiderman was homeless. Sharing that it was lack of constant nutrition would not only alarm Deadpool, but it would almost certainly make him feel guilted into bringing food every time he and Spiderman met up, and not because he could but because he pitied Peter. And Peter sure as hell couldn't let that happen.
"You're sick?" Deadpool questioned, but rather than the explanation reassuring the guy, as Peter had hoped and expected, he only sounded more alarmed. "It's not terminal, is it? Is it cancer? Because shit, I feel. But it's curable, right?"
Peter nodded quickly, not wanting Deadpool to think he was dying, and thought quickly. He coughed again, then pointed to his head, and then wobbled his hand back and forth in a so-so type of gesture.
"It's a mental sickness?" Deadpool clarified, relaxing only barely. Peter nodded. "What is it? Depression? Anxiety? Anorexia? Bulimia? Schizophrenia? DID? OCD? ADD? PTSD? That's all the letter ones I know; shit, what else is there." He scrambled as Peter kept shaking his head at what he threw out. "Uhh…plain old stress, maybe?" Peter nodded and waved his hand at this. Yes, he was pretty sure he had depression, anxiety, and PTSD, regardless of the fact that he hadn't been officially diagnosed, but if he admitted to any of those things he was 99% certain that Deadpool would actively try and do something about it, like try and convince him to see a counselor or go on meds or something, and that was definitely a no-go from Peter. Blaming the rash centering on his spinnerets on stress was just the easiest way to go, really.
"Aw, Spidey, why are you stressed?" Deadpool said, sounding anxious at the very thought himself, before he seemed to realize something and shook himself. "Shit, no. Boundaries. You're right, White – he doesn't need to answer that. You don't need to answer that, Spidey. I mean, obviously you're dealing with not easy things, what with the selective mutism and all. But just remember, Spidey, I'm not here to judge, alright?" His voice was uncharacteristically serious as he looked down at Peter. "So if you need help – with anything – you better come to me. I don't care if we have to play charades for eight hours for me to figure out what you need, but when I do figure out what it is I'll kill people to get it. If it's needed. I mean, I wouldn't kill someone in line in front of me in the grocery store if I had to pick something up for ya, because that's overkill – heh, no pun intended – but you know what I mean. Okay? Do you get me, Spidey?" Peter nodded, a bit caught off guard by the firm declaration said with atypical seriousness.
"Good," Deadpool said, posture lightening a bit as he straightened and finally released Peter's arm. Peter tugged the sleeve back down to cover the entirety of the skin again. "'Cause if you get hurt because you didn't ask for help, I will beat your fine ass, and not in the fun way. Maybe. Guess we'll see."
Not knowing how else to react, Peter gave him another thumbs-up in acknowledgement and passive agreement.
"Alright, then," Deadpool declared, planting his fists on his hips and standing with legs spread apart in a ridiculous superhero pose. To complete the image, he pointed a finger in the air. "Let's go stop some baddies!"
Steve wanted to meet the kid that Bucky had sort of maybe adopted, because of course he did. And nothing Bucky said to try and dissuade him worked.
Bucky could have refused outright, and he knew that Steve would have backed off. But something kept him from doing so, and he was left to simply try and convince Steve not to try and meet the kid.
He didn't know if it was his time with Hydra or simply the decades spent apart, but he'd forgotten exactly how stubborn the guy could be. Not to mention earnest.
And so, just a few days after he had told Steve about the homeless teen, he found himself going out for his morning run with a blond companion at his side.
"I don't even know if he'll be here today," Bucky half-warned and half-complained yet again. "He's not always here."
"I know, Buck," Steve said cheerfully, not deterred in the slightest by Bucky's pessimism. In his hand was a bag of muffins that he'd taken from the basket Tony had sent to the communal floor that morning. He also had two bottles of apple juice and a bottle of orange juice. Bucky had still insisted on stopping by McDonald's on the way to grab something with more protein in it though, so he was holding that one as they jogged.
"Doesn't hurt to try, though," Steve continued. "And if he's not there, we can eat all of this just fine today and try and see him again tomorrow."
Bucky sighed, knowing he was defeated. Steve was way too earnest – and invested – to be swayed now.
And it wasn't exactly that Bucky didn't want Steve and Peter to meet. It was just…what if Peter got spooked and ran? Or what if Peter figured out who they were, and wanted nothing to do with a former assassin for Hydra? Or what if Peter had no idea, but after meeting Steve, he preferred the blond anyway? Bucky didn't want to lose his friend, not even a little bit. There were just too many variables here to properly plan for all of them.
And, like Steve was psychic, the teenager was indeed there at the bench when they approached.
The kid sat up quickly when he saw Bucky, tentatively beginning to smile, before he spotted Steve next to him and his smile vanished, his frame going tense. He looked about two seconds away from bolting, and eyed the both of them distrustfully. The look he gave Bucky was one laced with betrayal, and Bucky's heart clenched a bit with worry anew at how this meeting might go.
"Hey, kid," Bucky said in his gentle voice, hoping the kid didn't run off out of fear of meeting a new person. "This is my – brother, that I told you about."
Steve gave Bucky a curious look, and Bucky willed himself not to flush. He'd never called Steve his brother in his presence before – not in this century, at least. He didn't want Steve to make a big deal out of it.
Luckily though, at the moment Steve was more focused on the kid, and didn't make any comment about it. Bucky wasn't foolish enough to believe that Steve wouldn't bring it up again, but he enjoyed the reprieve while he could.
"Hi," Steve said in a friendly voice. "I'm Steve, by the way. My brother's told me a little bit about you, and I wanted to meet the guy who'd impressed him so much. I brought muffins and juice."
The kid's expression lightened at the mention of food, and when Steve held out the bag with the muffins and juice, the kid glanced at Bucky as though for reassurance before he took the bag from Steve. When he bit into a cranberry orange muffin, he looked a bit surprised, and then pleased. Bucky thought it was a little bit adorable.
"And I brought you more real breakfast," Bucky said, sitting next to the kid and putting the McDonald's bag between them. "Because I'm the smart one between the two of us."
Steve made a halfhearted sound of protest, but the kid smiled at him, lips sticky with cranberry and muffin crumbs. He brought one hand to his chin and touched the tips of his fingers to it before bringing the hand away in an arc.
Bucky was a bit surprised at the gesture, recognizing it as sign language for "thank you". But then he reconsidered his surprise – although he knew that the kid didn't know sign language, that one was a fairly common one for people to know. This in mind, he didn't bother calling attention to it.
"No problem, kid," he said, trying for a smile. He supposed he must have been at least partially successful, because the teen didn't look troubled or caught up at the expression, looking back down to the bag of muffins and coming out with another one. Then he looked back up at Steve, who was still standing, and scooted over on the bench to make room, patting the seat next to him in clear invitation.
Steve's smile was genuine with an undercurrent of sadness as he accepted the offer, but rather than sitting on the seat, he climbed to sit on the arm rest, his feet placed next to the boy. Bucky understood why when he saw that the rest of the space wouldn't have fit Steve's wide body.
The kid didn't look bothered by this, apparently having realized the same thing, and offered the bag of muffins to the blond.
"Thanks," Steve said easily, taking one. "Now, he said your name was…"—he copied the motion that Bucky had shown him days previous—"but it's kinda weird to just keep calling you 'kid' in my head."
The boy looked unconcerned by this information, while at the same time a bit cautious at where Steve might be headed with this.
"I just wondered – if I found out your name, would you be okay with our knowing it?" Steve asked, a bit hesitantly, clearly unsure about how this might be taken by the teen. "Or would you rather we just stuck with the sign?"
But the teen just shrugged uncaringly, biting into a McMuffin and looking pleased to find that it was still a bit warm. He waved his hand as though to say, "go for it".
And Bucky really shouldn't have been surprised – because Steve was the "Man With a Plan", after all, and he'd been their tactical commander for a reason – but somehow he was caught a bit off guard when Steve immediately laid out his idea.
He went through the alphabet out loud, and when he got to the correct letter, he told the kid to stop him. It was by this method that the brunette spelled out his name, and Bucky marveled at how his best friend could come up with such a simple solution. Of course, he hadn't had electricity shot through his brain hundreds of times in the past seventy years, but still.
"Peter," Steve said with a smile. The kid – Peter – nodded and ducked his head a bit, fiddling with the empty wrapper in his hands a bit awkwardly, like he was suddenly uncertain what to do with himself now that they knew how to address him. Bucky could sympathize – after he had been assigned a name that was more than just "Asset" or "Soldier", he had been a bit nervous whenever someone would say any variation of his name around him. Over time, he had grown more comfortable with it, though at times he would revert back and find himself forgetting to respond when someone called to him.
"Good to meet ya, Pete," Steve expressed genuinely, trying to affect casualness to put the kid at ease. Bucky felt awkward, not knowing what to say and feeling like he was on the outskirts of the conversation where Steve could talk to the kid so naturally.
Trying to sound vaguely normal, he blurted out the first words he could think of to be a part of the conversation again. "Stop hogging all the muffins, Steve, and give me one."
"Yes, Your Highness," Steve snarked without pause for Bucky's (at least to him) uncharacteristic sass, passing the bag over Peter's head for Bucky to grab. Peter jerked a bit, startled at the movement above him, but when Bucky looked at his face he looked neutral and maybe even a bit sheepish, so Bucky didn't mention it.
Bucky wasn't sure how long they stayed there, chatting and – in Peter's case – gesturing, but he finally decided to call it quits when he saw the kid looking a bit sleepy but clearly resisting Morpheus' pull. He traded a look with Steve, and with a smile and a pat to Peter's knee, Steve expressed that they ought to be going, but that they'd be back another time.
Peter smiled up at them gratefully, and Bucky made a point of leaving the rest of the food on the bench beside Peter. He was pretty sure the kid had been keeping away from it under the assumption that eventually Steve and Bucky would decide to eat it, but Bucky just wanted him to eat. Lord only knew where he got his food otherwise, especially because if he was indeed a minor as Bucky supposed and he was hiding from CPS (an organization he was uncertain how he knew about, but the facts were there in his head and he'd confirmed with JARVIS), then he wouldn't be able to go to any of the numerous homeless shelters or soup kitchens around the city for fear of getting caught.
With a wave of farewell and a promise to return soon, the two super soldiers left the kid to his bench.
"I have a hypothesis," Tony announced as he strolled into the communal kitchen like it was a high society, red carpet event, rather than a normal breakfast with the Avengers. He was also wearing a ratty pair of grey sweatpants and a black wife beater, his feet bare, his face and arms littered with random spots and streaks of engine oil, and his hair in disarray. If you ignored the engine oil, he would've looked exactly like he'd just rolled out of bed. Actually, he probably had just woken up from a nap on the couch in his workshop – he didn't look nearly well-rested enough to have gotten a full night of sleep. They all recognized the signs of an inventing binge.
Meanwhile, the rest of them were in various states of sleepiness. Steve was looking sweaty like he'd only just come back from his run, a theory confirmed by Sam, who was hunched over his plate of eggs and toast and shoveling it into his mouth at an almost angry pace. He'd clearly been beaten by Steve again, and was sulking while his shirt, drenched in sweat, clung to his back.
Clint, meanwhile, looked like he had only just rolled out of bed, hair sticking in every direction while he sat hunched over an entire coffee pot, drinking directly from the spout and making Bruce wince at the thought of how hot it must be. Clint didn't seem to notice the heat though, and was too sleep deprived to care even if he had.
Bruce sat at the island, eating a bowl of yogurt and granola and making notes in a science journal he had laid out in front of him. Natasha was sitting next to him on the counter, idly swinging her legs a bit while she picked with her fingers at the large bowl of fruit salad beside her. Bucky was probably on his and Steve's floor still; he didn't come to breakfast with everyone else too often, as so many people made him jittery at times.
"What's your hypothesis, Tony?" Steve was the one to ask, because Steve was a saint who actually cared to humor his friends when everyone else went on like he wasn't there. Fuckers. They should be more like Steve. Except not too much, because when Steve set his mind to it he was really fucking annoying and their shouting matches were legendary in the Tower. Even Jamal, who manned the coffee cart on the sixteenth floor but still none of the Avengers had actually gone to get coffee from, knew about their shouting matches.
"Okay, so," Tony smacked his hands dramatically on the island, looking at all of them with a look that said 'this is very important, pay attention to me' but that they all ignored with the ease of practice and familiarity with his ways. "Spiderman."
Now he had their attention – though it was marginal, as Bruce only glanced up at him before looking back at his yogurt and Natasha gave an acknowledging hum around the grape she'd just popped in her mouth. Still, he'd take what he could get, and he was sure that he'd have their full attention by the end of his speech.
"I gathered all of the video files and records of when Spidey was out doing his business, being a vigilante and all," Tony explained. "And I put them into a calendar, and I found something ve-ry interesting..." He made a wordless gesture to JARVIS, and the AI brought up the calendar that Tony was talking about. It showed a span of two weeks, one week stacked on top of the other. Each day was a block of twenty-four full hours, and each event was a block of time, with a note for what it was. It began scrolling to the side, so that they could see not just two weeks, but all the months that Spiderman had been active.
"Except for just a few outliers of major events, and weekends, Spidey keeps his activities to after about three o'clock," Tony said excitedly. He made another gesture, and JARVIS pulled up several pictures of a school that had been partially destroyed and a police report.
"And, that whole issue with the giant lizard trying to infect New York?" Tony reminded them of the events that had occurred with the scientist-turned-monster over a year previous. They had been in Amsterdam at the time, dealing with what they hadn't realized at the time was a Hydra experiment gone awry, taking shape in sentient tulips that tried eating people. By the time they had gotten back, Spiderman had already dealt with the monster and saved New York.
"Apparently this lizard broke into a high school," Tony proclaimed. "Midtown Science High. No one is a hundred percent on what he was doing there, exactly, but a bunch of students said the lizard was looking for someone. Three guesses who.
"So," Tony wrapped it up, "I'm pretty sure that Spiderman would actually be better named Spiderkid…he's a high schooler!" He waited a moment, looking at all of them expectantly, before he blew out an exasperated breath. "This is where you guys say, 'Yay, Tony! You're a genius! You figured it out!' And I don't know if you guys just don't understand or if you don't care. Fill me in, here."
"I think it's viable," Natasha was the first one to say, affecting an air like she didn't actually care one way or the other, when Tony knew for a fact that she did. "I haven't gotten anything from my contacts, which if he is a teenager would make sense. No one would have heard of him until the moment he appeared on the scene, and then everyone knows everything they could already."
"But come on, a high schooler?" Clint protested. "Even our resident geniuses haven't figured out the formula to the guy's webs – you really think a teenager could develop that on his own?"
"He does go to a high school that's based in science," Sam offered, looking up from his eggs for the first time. "He could easily be a prodigy on the rise."
"Or what if he's a teacher at the high school?" Steve suggested with a creased brow. "It would explain the hours he works, and the knowledge to put something like those webs together."
"Come on, if a teacher was creating those webs, he wouldn't be teaching high school," Tony scoffed. "He would be working in a lab somewhere, creating new things for the rest of the world."
"Maybe, maybe not," Bruce shrugged. "Some people want to fly under the radar."
"If he wanted to fly under the radar, he wouldn't be going out in a red and blue spandex suit and catching baddies in his off time," Tony pointed out.
"But the suit disguises his identity, so it's not really him that's stopping crime; it's Spiderman," Clint expressed. "Who knows what the guy actually looks like?"
"What if it's a girl?" Sam wondered out of the blue. He was given matching looks of incredulousness from everyone on the team. "I'm just saying, the red and blue is flashy. Makes you look at something obvious while the person underneath is expertly hidden."
"Hm, how do I put this delicately?" Tony said thoughtfully, pressing his hands together and touching his fingers to his lips like he was praying. "The suit is skin-tight. It doesn't leave a whole lot to the imagination."
Sam rolled his eyes. "And it's easy to pad a suit that covers your entire body," he snarked. "Aside from any obvious manly features, think about the rest of his body. It's the body of a gymnast – and most gymnasts are girls."
"Wow, how incredibly sexist of you, Samuel," Tony said with exaggeratedly widened eyes.
If Sam kept rolling his eyes, one day they were just going to fall out. "It's not sexist, it's a generalization – there's a difference. Saying girl gymnasts are better than boy gymnasts would be sexist.
"Anyway," he continued, "If Spiderman is a girl, after being named it would make sense to go along with it and add certain features to the suit to perpetuate it."
"Maybe that's why Spidey went mute," Clint pondered. "No one can identify a girl's voice and out her. Him. Whoever."
"How did we even get to this?" Tony said exasperatedly. "I just figured it was a teenager and suddenly you're changing your mind about this guy actually being a guy."
"We're just keeping our options open, Tony," Bruce said with an innocent smile in the billionaire's direction. "Every variable and possibility needs to be evaluated before a conclusion can be drawn."
"I hope you're wrong about this one, though," Steve said with a furrowed brow. "I don't like the thought of what Spiderman has seen – or done – if I put him in a teenager's mold in my head."
"Hey, if the world were perfect, you wouldn't even be here," Tony said commiseratingly, and then paused when he realized how that sounded. "And by that, I mean that there wouldn't have been a war for you to sign up to fight in the first place. Ergo, no serum. Ergo, you wouldn't have crashed a plane to stop Nazis and then taken a seventy-year ice bath before suiting up to fight an alien army."
"I knew what you meant, Tony," Steve said wryly. "Now, enough of this talk of Spiderman. Come eat some eggs – you look ready to tip over."