"I disagree."
In the living area on the top floor of Avengers Tower, Steve Rogers clasped his hands beneath his chin, unequivocally rejecting Tony Stark's proposal: "We cannot let Spider-Man join the Avengers."
"But you approved this suggestion initially, Cap," Tony tapped the table with his knuckles. "You said he was well-trained, resolute—"
"I only said he was trained. But I didn't know there was an underage kid under that mask," Steve retorted immediately, cutting Tony off. "Tony, we're facing a war. We can't let children participate in war."
Tony lowered his head to look at the table, but immediately raised it to argue: "Will war spare a child, Cap? You've been through war; you know what kind of war we're facing. We need an army, not a small squad. That kid can be useful."
"I know even better that a soldier without conviction is a ticking time bomb on the battlefield, Tony. We're discussing a child here, a teenager who only gained powers a few months ago. Does he truly know what he's fighting for? He might just be acting out of his kind instincts to punish evil and promote good, but what the Avengers face? He's simply not ready."
The New Avengers Initiative—Tony's expansion plan after the Battle of New York, aimed at building a defense strong enough to withstand the next interstellar invasion. After all, this time, the Chitauri army only invaded through a portal. If next time, their fleet directly reached the outer solar system, could a force of only five Avengers stop an overwhelming alien army?
It wasn't just the Avengers; Nick Fury also knew that the five of them couldn't stop another large-scale alien invasion. After the Avengers separated from S.H.I.E.L.D. to become an independent organization, S.H.I.E.L.D., with Clint Barton as captain, formed a super-powered team called the "Thunderbolts" as a backup plan for the Avengers. Both Tony and Steve were well aware of this. And Tony and Steve tacitly avoided cooperating with Nick Fury, the one-eyed man who harbored too many secrets.
But now, the controversy over whether to recruit Spider-Man into the Avengers filled the conference room with tension.
Bruce Banner crunched on potato chips. As the team's "nuclear deterrent," he mostly just needed to stay in the lab. Unlike the movie universe, where everyone tended to focus more on their personal matters, the Avengers in this world were more like a tight-knit combat unit (though Thor was often absent). At this moment, he was observing the argument, and thanked Janet Van Dyne, Wasp, who brought him a fruit platter.
"What are Tony and Cap arguing about?"
"Uh, they're arguing about whether a high school kid should join the Avengers." Banner, whose mouth was dry from eating chips, picked up an apple slice with a toothpick and ate it. "Honestly, I think the suggestion is pretty outrageous too."
The Wasp listened, her face full of question marks.
"A high schooler? Good heavens, you're actually considering recruiting a high schooler instead of considering me?"
Janet Van Dyne, Ant-Man Hank Pym's girlfriend and the Wasp, was only the Avengers' manager, not an Avenger.
"Yeah, he's just a little kid, young, doesn't know anything," Tony picked up an orange slice from the fruit platter and popped it into his mouth. "But at least he wants to be a good guy, and he's acted on it, hasn't he? We can train him, lead him to become a qualified hero. Cap, if you think it's unsuitable, we can always just ask him if he's willing to join first."
"I don't think that kid would refuse," Tony said with a sly smile.
But this was precisely what the Captain was worried about.
"That kid will idolize us, imitate us, and then rush to the front to prove himself," the Captain pushed aside the fruit platter, his knuckles leaving white marks on the table. "He'll die in your arms or mine, asking us if he did what he was supposed to, just because we gave him expectations beyond what he could handle. He'll die in front of us."
"We can protect him, let him operate behind us—"
The Captain once again directly interrupted Tony.
"How can we protect that kid in a war where we ourselves might be sacrificed?"
Janet thoughtfully twirled a cherry stem. Banner, however, rubbed his temples, muttering about a headache, then finally offered his first suggestion: "Anyway, the aliens won't be invading anytime soon. How about we discuss this again in a few years?"
"Thanks, Bruce," Tony pointed at Banner. "Can you help me calculate when the alien invasion will actually happen? So I can schedule it."
"Forget I said anything."
Banner rubbed his jaw, as if he had a toothache, and asked Janet: "What's Hank doing?"
"Holed up in the lab, researching the Vibranium samples you guys got. He hasn't slept in two days," Janet rolled her eyes. "I even have to bring him food."
"Maybe you're underestimating the kid, Cap," Tony was still trying to persuade the Captain, or rather, trying to prove his point, but Steve was equally stubborn: "No matter how highly you regard him, he's still just a fifteen-year-old kid, Tony."
"I got my doctorate at sixteen. How old were you when you got your first doctorate, Bruce?"
"Uh, sixteen, my first PhD in experimental physics."
"Hey, guys, you won't believe what I found..." Hank Pym, with disheveled hair and deep dark circles under his eyes, emerged from the lab, still holding the previously confiscated Shocker gauntlet. He hadn't even finished speaking before Tony interrupted him: "When did you get your first doctorate, Hank?"
"Seventeen? Why do you ask?"
Tony smiled triumphantly: "Aha, I'm a year younger than you."
"You studied engineering, I studied theoretical physics, quantum mechanics. Of course you could finish at sixteen."
"Regardless," Tony wisely chose to return to the main topic, continuing to tell the Captain: "Fifteen is not that young anymore."
"We're not discussing age, but psychological fortitude..."
"Guys!" Hank forcefully interrupted them again: "You have to hear this. You won't believe what I found in the lab."
"We'll listen to your scientific creation later, Hank."
"This isn't a scientific creation, Tony." Hank's expression turned serious: "This concerns our operations."
A few minutes later, a schematic of the disassembled Shocker gauntlet appeared on the projector. The Avengers sat around, gazing at the structural diagram, awaiting Hank Pym's explanation.
"This thing is quite crude and primitive. I initially thought it had to rely on Chitauri technology to operate," Hank said, manipulating the projection to replace all Chitauri parts in the structural diagram with existing Earth components. "But look at this, guys, the person who invented this is an excellent engineer. It can be made entirely with pure Earth technology."
This was clearly not the main point, but having spent so much time together, the others understood Hank Pym's personality. They patiently waited for him to finish explaining how incredible the device was and how much fun he had researching it, before finally getting to the crux of the matter.
"The problem is, this system has a fatal flaw. As it's used more, the energy utilization rate will continuously increase—yes, you heard that right, it keeps getting higher and higher. This means the device that originally regulated the emission intensity will gradually fail, causing the output power to become uncontrollably higher and higher, higher and higher."
Everyone thought of the ultimate consequence: an explosion.
"Can't it be improved?" Tony leaned back in his chair, propping his chin, staring at the design, trying to offer a solution from the perspective of a fellow engineer and inventor. But even he had to admit that this system had this inherent flaw from its fundamental logic, and it was irreparable.
"This is a fundamental logic problem. To design such a simplified and efficient system, this is a necessary cost. We need to warn the police about the imperfections of this technology to prevent them from using it as a riot control weapon..."
"What's the blast radius?"
Poor Hank Pym was interrupted once more, but he still truthfully told Tony: "If Chitauri parts are used, the power is greater, reaching a diameter of two to three kilometers. Earth technology's blast diameter is smaller and more precise, basically one kilometer."
"J.A.R.V.I.S., what was that guy's name again..."
"Herman Schultz." The Captain remembered clearly. Hank hadn't realized there was a problem yet, but Tony and the Captain exchanged glances, both realizing the situation was grim.
"How long has he been out of jail, Cap?"
"Almost a week."
"But we don't know how many of these flawed weapons he can build in a week," Tony sighed deeply. "That's the biggest problem."