The Avengers gym was my happy place. It hummed with a rhythm of controlled power—the low groan of the leg press machine under Steve's casual quarter-ton, the whisper-quiet spin of high-tech stationary bikes. It smelled like clean rubber, ozone from the advanced tech. For me, it was the one place where being Spider-Man didn't feel like a secret I was constantly trying to keep under wraps. Here, I could just be.
Today, "being" meant showing off. I did a backflip off the top of a pommel horse, landing neatly on a balance beam. "See, Bobby? It's all in the core. You gotta engage the obliques."
Bobby Drake, better known as Iceman, shot me a look that could have frosted glass. He was methodically working a resistance band, his movements careful and deliberate. He was mostly healed, but the caution remained.
"Easy for you to say, Parker," he grumbled, his breath misting slightly in the cool air he naturally generated. "Your core is basically made of alien bubblegum and anxiety. I, on the other hand, am a delicate, recovering flower."
I vaulted off the beam, sticking the landing with a flourish. "A delicate, recovering grandpa. I've seen glaciers move faster than that set you just did."
"Hilarious. Remind me to freeze your web-shooters the next time you're swinging over the Hudson." His retort was sharp, but the corner of his mouth twitched. That was our rhythm—a constant volley of lighthearted jabs that made the grueling repetition of training bearable.
I bounced on the balls of my feet, feeling the familiar thrum of energy under my skin. "Come on, Ice Pop, pick it up. At this rate, your muscles are going to forget what a real workout feels like."
"My muscles are fine," he said, letting the band go slack. He rotated his shoulder, a slight wince flashing across his face before he masked it. "It's my… other muscles that are atrophying."
I grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat from my brow, the fabric of my mask slightly damp. "Your other muscles? What, like your smiling muscles? Because I've got plenty of jokes to help you with that."
He didn't answer right away. He just stared at the rack of weights across the room, his usual frosty confidence seeming to thaw into something softer, more uncertain. The playful energy between us dissipated, replaced by a sudden, heavy quiet.
"I almost did it," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
I stopped bouncing. "Almost did what? Finally admit that my taste in pizza is superior?"
He shook his head, a faint, humorless smile on his lips. "No. I was going to ask her out."
Oh. Oh. This was not our usual territory. Our conversations were typically limited to superheroics, bad movies, and the quality of the Tower's cafeteria food.
"That mysterious girl?"
Bobby nodded, running a hand through his brown hair. "Yeah. She was working the late shift yesterday. It was quiet, just us. He was showing me this new comic she was reading, and she was laughing, and… it was perfect. The perfect moment."
I could picture it. Bobby, leaning against the counter, a genuine, unguarded smile on his face.
"So what happened?" I prompted gently.
He let out a long, frustrated sigh, a plume of cold vapor escaping his lips. "I had the words and everything. I practiced them in my head. 'Hey, I know this is forward, but I think you're really cool, and I'd love to get a coffee sometime. Just the two of us.' Smooth, right?"
"Smoother than a freshly Zamboni'd rink," I confirmed. "A solid ten out of ten."
"Right? But then I opened my mouth, and… nothing. It was like my brain just… shut down. All I could hear was this roaring sound in my ears, and my heart was trying to hammer its way out of my chest. I just stood there like an idiot for a second, then mumbled something about needing to get home and practically ran out the door." He slumped onto the bench, the picture of defeat. "I literally froze. Guess I'm just living up to the name."
The joke landed with a thud. The frustration in his voice was raw, layered with a deep, cutting embarrassment that I knew all too well. This wasn't the wisecracking Iceman, sparring partner and Avenger. This was just Bobby Drake, a guy beating himself up for being human.
I sat down on the bench next to him, the metal cool against my suit. The sounds of the gym seemed to fade into the background.
"Hey," I said, my voice softer than before. "So you froze. It happens."
"Not like that, Pete," he muttered, staring at his hands. "It was pathetic."
"No, it wasn't." I nudged his good shoulder with mine. "It was a misfire. One screw-up doesn't mean the whole mission is a bust. You'll get another chance. You'll go back tomorrow, ask to hangout and try again."
He scoffed. "And what? Freeze again? Make it even more awkward? Maybe I'll accidentally encase the espresso machine in a block of ice this time. Really impress her."
I couldn't help but chuckle, and thankfully, it seemed to break a little of his tension. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, my history with asking people out is essentially a blooper reel. The first time I tried to talk to Elaine during our first date—I was so nervous that I completely forgot how to speak English. I think I just made a series of panicked squeaking noises and then accidentally webbed myself to a lamppost."
Bobby's head snapped up, a flicker of disbelief in his eyes. "No way."
"Way," I insisted. "She thought it was some kind of avant-garde performance art. It took me a week to work up the courage to even walk past her again. Trust me, when it comes to romantic fumbling, I'm a grandmaster."
A real, genuine laugh escaped him, and the oppressive cloud of gloom around him seemed to lift. "You webbed yourself to a lamppost?"
"Securely," I said with a solemn nod. "Had to use my spare webbing to cut myself free. It was not my finest hour."
He shook his head, a smile finally reaching his eyes. "Okay, that is pretty bad."
"See? You're not alone in the hall of romantic failures." I stood up and offered him a hand. "Come on. Let's spar. Lightly," I added quickly, gesturing to his shoulder.
He took my hand and let me pull him to his feet. "Why? So you can show off your non-grandpa-level acrobatics again?"
"Nope," I said, leading him toward the open sparring mats. "For a lesson."
We fell into an easy rhythm. He was still tentative, favoring his left side, but his instincts were sharp. He sent a sheet of slick ice across the mat, and I leaped over it, my spider-sense giving me a split-second warning. I shot a loose web at his feet, which he dodged by sliding on a patch of his own ice.
"You don't nail a new combo the first time you try it, right?" I said, easily cartwheeling away from a blast of cold air. "You train. You practice the footwork. You stumble. You get your timing wrong and get tagged."
I feinted left, then shot a web that snagged the resistance band he'd left on the floor and whipped it harmlessly past his ear. He flinched, then smirked.
"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take," he shot back, quoting some motivational poster.
"Exactly!" I landed in a low crouch. "You get back up, you watch the tape, you figure out what went wrong, and then you try again. Asking someone out is the same deal. Your first attempt was just a stumble. It's not a knockout. It's just… practice."
He slid forward, trying to sweep my legs, but his footing was off. He wobbled for a second, and I instinctively reached out to steady him. For a moment, we were just standing there on the mat, the hum of the gym around us.
He chuckled, a quiet, breathy sound. "So what you're saying is I just need to treat it like a training exercise?"
"More or less," I said, clapping him on his good shoulder. "Except maybe with less punching and more actual words next time."
We wrapped up a few minutes later, both of us breathing a little harder but the mood completely restored. As we grabbed our water bottles and headed for the locker room, Bobby seemed different. The frustrated slump was gone, replaced by his usual posture.
"You know," he said, unscrewing the cap on his bottle. "Maybe next time, I'll actually manage to 'unfreeze'." He said it with a wry grin, reclaiming the joke and turning it from a symbol of his failure into a goal.
I bumped my shoulder against his. "I know you will, man. You got this."
We walked out of the gym together, the banter picking up right where it left off, me teasing him about his choice of post-workout smoothie and him firing back with a deadpan critique of my suit's color scheme. He was still Bobby, quick with a chilly comeback and a guarded exterior. But as we walked down the hall, I noticed something new. He was walking just a little bit taller, carrying a quiet confidence that wasn't there an hour ago, ready for the next round.