Bruce, despite his brief encounter with the 199999 Avengers, had not yet really interacted with them much. He was not aware that any of them were particularly close to his own Avengers or their children yet—it had only been three weeks, after all. He was, therefore, a bit gobsmacked when Peter texted him to meet him at Stark Tower and he arrived to find male Tony and his own double in the lab with Peter sticking to the ceiling, barefoot.
"Hey Uncle Bruce," Peter said, giving him an upside down wave. "So uh. I got bit by a genetically altered possibly radioactive spider and now we're doing science. Sound fun?"
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and almost walked right back out.
"So I'm guessing," Bruce said, walking further into the lab anyway, "you want me to help figure out whether or not this is going to kill you or disappear, and so on and so forth?"
"That would be really helpful," Peter said, pulling his bambi eyes out on him. "Other You is already on the case though. I just thought you might like to join us in our science." Peter flipped down from the ceiling. It was startling, to find the gawky, awkward teen suddenly so agile. Bruce had always had a soft spot for the youngest of the Rogers brood. He was the most like Tony in her best ways, and the most like Steve in his, and, unlike the other two, he was normal. No super-soldier genes had graced his muscles, and thus Peter was a geeky, defenseless kid the same way Bruce had been. The same way Peter's father—who had been an inspiration for young, elementary school Bruce—had been. He had none of Tony's blustering confidence or arrogant charm, either. He had no defenses, not even emotional ones (though, his snarky attitude came close). Bruce was more than a little taken aback to find him able to flip down from the ceiling with all the grace and ease of any of the kids who trained at the Avengers Academy.
"And what science is that, exactly?" Bruce asked.
"We're finding his limits," male Tony responded with a lazy grin, and Bruce felt his hackles raise.
"And just what does that entail, precisely?" Bruce demanded. Male Tony's expression changed to one of surprise and he put his hands up.
"Woah, easy, we're not breaking the kid's bones to see how fast they heal or anything," Tony said. "We've been doing surface tests, for one thing. He sticks to glass." Bruce whipped around to look at Peter.
"Your hands are using atomic force to stay in place?" he asked.
"Just like a spider," Peter said. Bruce removed his glasses, cleaned them off with the bottom of his shirt, and put them back on.
"Well then, what are we waiting for? We've got science to do," Bruce said decidedly. Peter's face split into a wide grin. There, now, that was the Peter Bruce knew.
After a few hours, they'd run just about every relevant test they could think of. They'd tried force tests, to see how much Peter could hold before slipping off a surface—they hadn't had enough weight for him to hold, but ended up with an estimate of several tons per finger.
"Though, I wouldn't recommend trying to hold too much—after all you might still be able to stick to the wall with ten tons hanging off of you, but at what point does your arm rip from your body?" male Tony mused at one point.
"Lovely imagery there," Peter remarked.
"Are we talking sudden or gradual force here?" Bruce's double inquired.
"Ok, no, enough with the tearing me limb from limb question here," Peter said, ending that particular line of scientific inquiry.
Peter dead lifted a full ton in the lab with no trouble—male Tony wanted to conduct additional field tests to see just how muchhe could lift, but it would have to wait for another day. Peter's reflexive abilities were off the charts, and his perception had changed to the point that he could dodge paintball bullets male Tony shot at him at Peter's own request. Peter wanted to try something faster, but none of them were sure how to achieve that without actually shooting something potentially deadly at him, so the idea dropped. Peter's tendons and connective tissues were over twice as flexible as a normal human.
"I'm no Reed, though," Peter said even as he contorted himself into a position that made even Bruce, with all his years of yoga, wince to look at. As he got up, Bruce wrote down the final pieces of their findings. The only thing left were the biological tests, most of which would not show results until the morning.
"Who's Reed?" male Tony asked.
"Brilliant scientist. Scatterbrained though. And he has powers of elasticity which are—well, they're useful but frankly a little disturbing to see sometimes. You get used to it, though. Sort of. He's our go-to guy for time travel, alternate universes and the like. I'm sure you'll meet him at some point," Bruce said. "He's also in the Fantastic Four, another superhero team around here."
"You seem to have a lot of those," his double remarked. His expression was guarded. Bruce understood (unsurprisingly).
"Well, we have enough problems to warrant it," he answered. "And when we don't? Sometimes it's nice to let another team take care of the problem. We don't exactly lead normal lives, but we couldn't have even any semblance of normal life without the other teams." Bruce watched as Peter climbed back onto the ceiling, apparently his new favorite place. He looked up at his favorite young 'nephew'. "You know, people are going to start calling you 'spider-boy' if you don't cut that out."
"Spider-Boy?" Peter huffed in indignation. "Boy? I think not. Spider-Man is more like it."
"Can you even grow peach fuzz on your cheeks?" male Tony asked, teasing.
"How dare you question my masculinity," Peter replied.
"So that's a no, then."
Peter pouted and kept arguing in a snark-off with male Tony. Bruce elected to join his double at a computer while he ran specs on some of Peter's blood. So far the blood itself seemed normal—Bruce had his suspicions that the bite had somehow altered Peter's genetics but left most of his essential human-ness alone. At least, he hoped that was the case.
"Peter told me you have kids," his double spoke to him suddenly. His tone was light, but Bruce knew himself well enough to know that he was just doing his best to keep cool.
"Two," Bruce replied carefully. "Brian and Lyra." His double nodded, keeping his eyes trained on the computer screen.
"And that—how did that work, exactly, might I ask?" his double asked. His expression was a careful blank. Bruce felt his own chest tighten.
"Oh," Bruce replied, too overcome with sudden emotion to say anything. He knew why his double was asking. "Oh it—I don't—Betty and I got married before—before everything." His double was still. Very still, very calm, very natural. Bruce felt his gut twisting for this far less fortunate version of himself. And yet at the same time he felt a perverse relief, a 'better him than me' feeling, and he hated himself for that.
"I see," his double replied. "Of course."
That was the end of that conversation.
"Hey, Uncle Bruce! Check this out!" Peter called. He was stuck to the ceiling again, but this time his hands and feet were free—he had removed his shirt and stuck there with his back alone. He had such an expression of glee on his face that Bruce recalled the time when he was six and the whole Avengers and all their family went to DisneyLand for the day. That same smile had never left his face. Bruce recognized that smile not just in Peter, but in all of the kids. Kate smiled that way when she'd told him proudly that she'd gotten the part of Clara in the Nutcracker. James smiled that way when he was ten and he got back from a full day of playing at the ball park with Steve, just the two of them. But it wasn't a smile specific to the Rogers. Bruce knew that smile because Lyra wore it when she won her first science fair, because Brian wore it when he got his acceptance letter to MIT. And in that moment, with Peter grinning at him, happy to share this moment with them, Bruce felt an incredible pang of sadness. Because he doubted if his double would ever know what it was to recognize that smile in the face of your child.