Chapter Fourteen: The Captain Has A Fan(boy)

Steve had meant it when he told Director Fury that the Tesseract should've stayed in the ocean. Now it was out there, in the hands of an enemy. The files he had been given, though, the ones with the people they were bringing into help, looked promising. He was curious about meeting Howard's son, and he was sure the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were impressive in their own right. The Hulk was a conundrum, but his alter ego, Dr. Bruce Banner, looked like a nice guy, if a bit of a loner. Yet that could apply to himself as well, based off of his isolation habits after he'd been unfrozen.

Now he was waiting on the roof of his usual gym, one that he suspected S.H.I.E.L.D. had kept the general public away from. And he would admit to jumping when the invisible, hovering plane appeared out of nowhere and descended to land on the roof vertically. The ramp opened down and out, revealing a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the typical black suit with a receding hairline and a colorfully-clothed individual sitting in the closest seat to the left who was immersed in an exceptionally thick book.

The agent, who had shaken his hand crisply and introduced himself as Phil Coulson, showed him on and where to stow his small bag – which he clearly hadn't shown the costumed person, as they had a duffel propped in the seat next to them and the straps were looped through their arm. The unknown lifted their head from their reading leisurely and did a visible double-take when they saw Steve.

"You told me we were picking up another person," a male voice accused Agent Coulson, "not freaking Captain America!" He turned his head to look at the blonde and he was met with wide, bug-eye lenses that reflected the light with a gold tint, concealing whatever was below as well as the spider-webbed red mask on his lower face.

"Wow! Pleasure to met you, Captain my Captain. Spider-man, at your service!" Reaching across the plane to meet him halfway, Steve obliged with his offered handshake, suitably impressed with the strength of it, especially because the guy was so skinny. Even though it was hard to tell much from the hoodie he wore, it was obvious that he was much smaller than the super-soldier.

"Steve Rogers." Spider-man cocked his head to the side as if expecting something more, an act that was both unnerving and innocent due to the goggles he wore, then turned to Agent Coulson.

"Have you guys let him outside at all since you've found him?" the man accused while Steve felt the beginnings of a light flush on his cheeks. Had he been that open with his confusion at the oddly dressed newcomer? "Well, Captain Rogers, if you haven't been out and about all that much, then I get a first impression without Triple J's paper of lies tarnishing it! Dreams do come true!"

Steve was hard-pressed not to smile at Spider-man's constant energy, though he was wondering what exactly the papers were saying to "tarnish" people's views of him. From what he saw, he was a nice guy, if a little sarcastic.

"So, I'm Spidey… you already know that… sorry. I'm basically a superhero. Y'know, punch the bad guy, save the city, and never establish a solid relationship with anybody, the whole nine yards. After a while, Fury tracked me down, offered a place on the team, I said no, come find me when the world's ended or there's an alien invasion, and now there's apparently aliens of some sort, but Mr. Agent over here wouldn't give me the info packet until we picked you up." He turned, leaving Steve blinking for a second at the stream of words that had just come out of his mouth, and focused on Agent Coulson for a second. "So, can I have the thing now?"

The older man gave the barest of smiles and handed the brunet a tablet with three folder icons hovering and waiting for him, though the man out of time could see the amusement in his eyes after he took off his sunglasses and handed the same thing to him. Spider-man gave a nod and a murmured thanks before going right back to scrolling through the gathered information.

"Is he always like that?" he asked Agent Coulson when he lingered by his seat.

"No, he was actually really quiet until we got to you."

"Yes, well I have a reputation to maintain, don't I?" Spidey put in much louder than the two whisperers without looking up. Steve didn't flinch, no sir, at the third voice that he thought couldn't hear them. Instead, he gazed down at his own tablet, experimentally pressed one of the icons with his pointer, and scrolled through the documents that popped up as he had seen the superhero doing with his own.

They sat – or in Agent Coulson's case, stood, despite there being plenty of open chairs – like that for a while, the only sound the shuffling when Spider-man finished reading well before Steve and dragged his heavy book back into his lap with ease to continue with his research. The blonde didn't even try to figure out what it was about after catching the word "thermonuclear" at the top in one of the page's sentences.

Eventually, the unnamed and silent pilot spoke up. "We're about forty minutes out from home base, sir." Coulson nodded and moved over to where Steve was watching a green giant tear through what used to be… well, he wasn't even sure anymore.

"So, this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the serum they used on me?" he questioned, just to be conversational.

"A lot of people were," came the answer. "You were the world's first superhero." A few muttered words floated over from where Spider-man kept reading, sounding suspiciously like "And then I came along." "Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."

"Didn't really go his way, did it?"

"Not so much. When he's not that thing, though that guy's like a Stephen Hawking." Steve gave him a confused look.

"He's smart," the arachnid-themed hero called from where he sat pouring over the tome in his lap and tapping his foot hyperactively. "Very, very smart, to put it in simple terms." He got a sheepish smile, and giving a nod of acknowledgement, continued reading. It was amazing how different he was acting from earlier, the bouncy, snarky superhero replaced with a much calmer persona, though that persona was still slightly fidgety.

Beside him, Agent Coulson continued talking. "I gotta say – it's an honor to meet you, officially. I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping. I mean, I was, I was present, while you were unconscious from-the-ice."

"Creepy!" Spidey singsonged from across the jet, gaining a look from the agent, who followed Steve as he got up from his seat and moved to the cockpit by the pilot. The pilot seemed to be having some trouble not smiling or – God forbid – laughing at his superior.

"You know it's really – it's just a – just a huge honor to have you on board – it's…"

"Well, I hope I'm the man for the job," he voiced to try to put the poor man out of his stuttering misery.

"Oh, you are, absolutely. Ah – we made some modifications to the uniform. I had a little design input."

"The uniform?" Steve reiterated, incredulous. "Aren't the stars and stripes a little… old-fashioned?"

"Everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old-fashioned," the agent finished wisely. The star-spangled man with a plan hummed a little in agreement, then went to sit beside Spider-man. He could tell the superhero was smirking behind his mask at their little exchange.

"If it makes you feel any better about Agent Fanboy's costume ideas," the younger told him under his breath, "just look at me." Spidey giggled a little. "Heh… Agent Fanboy…"

Okay, an explanation for why this update is early: I'm in Key Club and am going to DCON (the district convention, all the clubs in the Pacific Northwest come) this weekend! Woo! It's going to be great! But that means I'm leaving Friday and won't be able to post, so it's a tiny bit early this week (I think you all agree with me when I say it's better to have an update early rather than late). Moving on!

I loved writing out Coulson's little conversation with Steve. It's even funnier when you see it in writing rather than hearing it. Of course… I could do both… off to watch Avengers! Again! For like, more than the sixth time! I watch a heck of a lot of Marvel if you can't tell.

Lucky

To ellainaparker: Wasn't planning on stopping!

To twilightserius: It's one of those three, but I'm not saying! Keep reading to find out!

To Vladimir Mithrander: Yay! And don't worry… Hiro has his ways of getting around…

To fan01: I like to attempt sort-of cliffhangers, but they don't usually seem all that good to me. So I'm glad to see I'm keeping the readers on their toes! There might be a real one later...

To Azaira: First of all, thank you so much for the honest feedback, it'll help me improve in the future. I'd also like to say that I had originally had the boys at a bit older, then had to decrease the age as I realized the plotline I wanted to write wouldn't work with those ages. Yeah, Peter and Hiro will end up as a couple (at some point, they're slow) and I never really liked genderswapping my characters, so I didn't. I recognize that I could've done better, so thank you for pointing the specifics out, but I have no experience in this department at all and had to simply try my best. The entire chapter was written without any solid plan (at one point I was going to add something about Peter having a crush on some boy at school, but that obviously didn't happen). And I agree with the Tony part, I might implement that later (but he'll probably just stay with Pepper either way). I try not to completely warp personality, but it's not like I was sticking to canon in the first place. Anyways, I'm glad you like the rest of my story and thanks again!

Thank you to all those who read and review (and favorite and follow), especially those who help me improve my writing! Y'all are amazing!