"I completely disagree."
In the sprawling, glass-walled living area on the top floor of Avengers Tower, Steve Rogers folded his hands and rested his chin on his knuckles. He locked eyes with Tony Stark. "We are not bringing Spider-Man onto the Avengers roster."
"You were the one who originally floated the idea, Cap," Tony argued, rapping his knuckles against the sleek glass conference table. "You watched the footage. You literally said he was well-trained and pulled his punches."
"I said he was trained," Steve shot back instantly. "I didn't know there was a minor under the mask. Tony, we are preparing for a war. We do not draft children into a warzone."
Tony dropped his gaze to the table for a fraction of a second before looking back up, his jaw set. "You think an alien invasion is going to spare kids? Cap, you know exactly what we're facing. If another fleet shows up, they won't just funnel through a single portal. We need a fully equipped army, not a six-man strike squad. That kid has power. We can use him."
"I know better than anyone what happens when you put a soldier on the field before they're ready," Steve warned, his voice dropping low. "We're talking about a teenager. He's had these powers for what, a few months? He's running on adrenaline and good intentions. He has absolutely no idea what the Avengers are actually up against. He isn't prepared for the psychological weight."
The "New Avengers Project" was Tony's obsession following the Battle of New York. The Chitauri had been a wake-up call. If the next armada didn't bother with a portal and just parked a fleet in Earth's orbit, the current Avengers wouldn't be enough to hold the line.
Nick Fury knew it, too. Since the Avengers had officially fractured away from S.H.I.E.L.D. oversight, Fury had quietly authorized the Thunderbolts—a black-ops super-team led by Clint Barton—as a failsafe. Tony and Steve both knew about it, and both of them actively avoided working with the one-eyed spy whenever possible.
But right now, the debate over Spider-Man was turning the Avengers' common room hostile.
Bruce Banner sat at the far end of the table, loudly crunching on a potato chip. As the team's resident "nuclear deterrent," Bruce rarely left the Tower's labs. Unlike the fractured, independent heroes in other universes, this iteration of the Avengers lived and operated as a tight-knit unit—when Thor was actually on the planet, anyway.
Bruce swallowed the chip and looked up as Janet van Dyne set a fresh fruit platter on the table.
"I'm with Steve on this," Bruce said, picking up an apple slice with a toothpick. "Honestly, the proposal is ridiculous."
Janet froze, her hand resting on the edge of the fruit platter. As Hank Pym's partner and the official manager of the Avengers, she had been fighting for an active combat roster spot as the Wasp for months.
She looked at Tony, genuine offense flashing across her face. "Wait. Let me get this straight. You are seriously considering recruiting a literal high school student to the active combat roster, but you won't clear me for field duty?"
"He's a kid, Janet, but he's already out there taking hits, and it's not us who doesn't want you out there, it's mainly just Hank" Tony deflected, grabbing an orange slice. "The kid wants to help. If we bring him in, we can train him. We can control the variables. Cap, if you're so worried about his readiness, let's just ask the kid if he even wants the job."
Tony flashed a sly smirk. "I guarantee he won't say no."
"That is exactly what I am worried about," Steve said, pushing his chair back. He pressed his fists into the table, his knuckles turning white. "He's a kid. He's going to idolize us. He'll imitate us. And the second things go wrong, he'll rush the front line just to prove he belongs here. He'll take a hit meant for you or me because we put expectations on him that he couldn't carry. He'll die right in front of us, Tony."
"We can put him on rear-guard detail. Keep him behind the heavy hitters—"
"How do you protect a child in a war where even we might not survive?" Steve cut him off bluntly.
Janet twisted a cherry stem between her fingers, the tension in the room making her wince. Bruce rubbed his temples, already exhausted by the elevated heart rates.
"Look," Bruce sighed. "Since the alien armada isn't currently hovering over Manhattan, why don't we shelve this draft debate for a few years?"
Tony pointed a finger at Bruce. "Can you run a predictive algorithm on exactly when the aliens are coming back? I want to make sure my calendar is clear."
"Forget it," Bruce muttered, rubbing his jaw like he had a toothache. He looked up at Janet. "What is Hank even doing?"
"He's been locked in the lab analyzing the Chitauri tech you guys confiscated from that bank robbery," Janet rolled her eyes. "He hasn't slept in two days. I literally have to slide plates of food under the door."
Tony turned back to Steve, refusing to drop the Spider-Man issue. "You're underestimating him, Cap. Age is just a number."
"He is fifteen years old, Tony."
"I got my first PhD at sixteen," Tony countered instantly. He looked down the table. "Bruce, how old were you?"
"Sixteen," Bruce mumbled. "Experimental physics."
The heavy glass doors of the lab suddenly slid open. Hank Pym stumbled into the room. His hair was sticking up in every direction, and heavy, dark bags hung under his eyes. He was gripping a ruined piece of Herman Schultz's Shocker gauntlet.
"Guys, you are not going to believe what I just—"
"Hank, quick question," Tony interrupted. "How old were you when you got your first doctorate?"
Hank blinked, completely derailed. "Seventeen? Why?"
Tony smirked at Steve. "Ha. I beat him by a year."
"You studied mechanical engineering, Tony," Hank scowled, walking toward the table. "I studied theoretical physics and quantum mechanics. A monkey could get an engineering degree at sixteen."
"The point is," Tony smoothly pivoted back to Steve, "fifteen isn't a baby."
"We aren't discussing his academic threshold, we're discussing his psychological resilience—"
"Guys!" Hank slammed the piece of the Shocker gauntlet down onto the glass table. "Shut up and look at this. You need to see what I pulled off the internal drives."
"We can admire your reverse-engineering later, Hank," Tony waved a hand.
"This isn't about science, Tony," Hank said, his voice dropping into a dead, serious octave. "This is a massive problem."
Hank tapped his Stark-pad. The room's overhead lights dimmed, and a glowing blue holographic schematic of the Shocker gauntlet projected onto the center of the table. The Avengers leaned in.
"The casing is primitive," Hank explained, dragging his fingers through the hologram to isolate different components. "I initially assumed the entire firing mechanism relied on the salvaged Chitauri cores. But look at this." He tapped a cluster of wiring. The alien tech faded, replaced by standard industrial Earth components. "The guy who designed this is a brilliant engineer. He doesn't even need the alien batteries. He can build this using pure, over-the-counter Earth tech."
Tony frowned, studying the wiring. "Okay. So he's smart. What's the issue?"
"The issue," Hank said grimly, "is that the base logic of his operating system has a fatal, irreversible flaw. To maximize the kinetic shockwave, he removed the energy-dampeners. As the gauntlet fires, the energy utilization rate climbs. It compounds. The dial he uses to adjust the output will eventually burn out, causing the kinetic charge to rise uncontrollably."
Steve sat back in his chair. "A runaway feedback loop."
"Exactly," Hank nodded. "It will overload. And then it will detonate."
"Can he fix it?" Tony asked, his eyes scanning the holographic code. He was already trying to solve the problem in his head.
"No," Hank said firmly. "It's baked into the underlying physics of his design. It's the price he paid for making the system so efficient. We need to alert the NYPD immediately so they don't try to lock these things up in a standard evidence room..."
"Hank," Steve interrupted, his voice tight. "What is the blast radius?"
Hank swallowed hard. "With the Chitauri cores? Two to three kilometers. If he builds one using standard Earth tech? A solid, guaranteed one-kilometer crater."
Tony looked at Steve. "JARVIS, pull the NYPD file. What was the suspect's name?"
"Herman Schultz," Steve answered before the AI could.
The room went dead silent. Tony and Steve exchanged a dark, heavy look.
"How long has he been missing, Cap?"
"Almost a full week."
"We have absolutely no idea how many of these gauntlets he's manufactured in the last seven days," Tony said, rubbing a hand over his face. "He isn't just building weapons. He's building dirty bombs."
PS: Captain America's intense reluctance to bring a teenage Spider-Man into the Avengers in this chapter mirrors a huge piece of comic history! In the original Ultimate Marvel Universe (Earth-1610), Captain America was incredibly hard on Peter, constantly telling him he was too young and inexperienced for the superhero life. When Peter tragically died fighting the Green Goblin (taking a bullet meant for Cap), Steve Rogers carried a massive, crushing amount of guilt, blaming himself for not training the kid properly.