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Peter sighed as he swung across the city.
It'd been a week since that horrible training with Cap and Tony, and they'd called him that morning to make sure he'd come to this week's session. Unfortunately Peter, having woken up to the call after maybe three hours max of sleep, had stupidly said yes before he'd even processed what the call was actually about. Having missed his chance to make an excuse, he was making his way towards the tower as slowly as he possibly could, for once wishing that something would happen along the way that led to a further delay.
Sadly, Lady Luck seemed to have it out for him, so for ONCE in his life there was zero crime to stop on the way.
"HEYYYY SPIIDDEEEYYYY~"
Peter smiled, shooting over to the rooftop in relief at the opportunity to delay.
"Deadpool, what are you doing here?" Peter asked, landing on the edge of the building.
Wade strolled across the roof towards him, "What," he whined, "can't a friendly mercenary loiter wherever he pleases?"
Peter got the distinct feeling the guy was giving him puppy dog eyes under the mask, and sighed. "'Pool, it's the middle of the day. AND this is on the other side of the city from your normal tramping ground, which also happens to be where your apartment is." Peter raised a brow under the mask, crossing his arms, "Meaning that you had to consciously have come to this spot for a specific reason. So spill."
The red-clad mercenary put his hands up in defeat, plopping down next to the hero.
"Alright alright FINE, you caught me. A little spider once told me that his Avengers training happens every Friday." Wade's tone changed, suddenly more serious, "After last week's debacle I came to check if you were going back or not."
The spider-themed hero sighed, plopping down next to Deadpool and swinging his legs over the edge. "I have to go back, I can't just skip a meeting with the literal Avengers!" "I mean-" "Wade!"
Wade wisely shut his mouth.
Peter sighed, pulling his legs to his chest, "I just… I don't know what to do! No matter how much I tell them that I literally CANNOT treat training like a real fight they just keep pushing! It's always 'Peter, stop pulling your punches.' 'Peter, you can't fight like this on the streets.' 'Peter, it's okay, I can take the hit!' NO YOU LITERALLY CAN'T!!" At the exclamation Peter's fist smashed into the stone beside him, a crater forming beneath his fist.
The teen winced slightly, looking down at the damage. "Dang it, sorry to whoever has to fix that, dang it!" he pulls his fists into his lap, curling up tighter.
Wade whistled, impressed. "Well then, why don't you just show them?"
Peter froze, whipping his head to look over at his friend, "What do you mean by that?"
"Well," Deadpool drawled, standing slowly and beginning to walk away, "If you can't tell them that one punch from you has enough power to knock their skeleton right out of their skin, why don't you find something less living that you can hit to show them?"
There was silence behind the mercenary for a moment before a laugh of pure shock erupted behind him, "'Pool that's, oh my gosh, that's brilliant! You're the best!!" With a quickly yelled out 'Thank you!' Spidey was swinging away towards Avengers Tower at full speed, leaving a smirking mercenary in his wake.
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Peter landed on the tower's landing pad just in time for an arrow to come sailing just past his ear, Peter dodging it just in time.
"Whoops, sorry Peter!" Clint yelled from across the deck, putting his bow down into its case, "Just wanted to make sure it was still taut after being stringed inside its case for so long. SOMEONE," a quick side eye to where Clint was glaring showed the red-haired perpetrator, "forgot to unstring it before she put it away after the last mission."
"Hey! It's not my fault you made your long bow look like a compound bow for absolutely no reason!"
"The fuck are you on about, it looks nothing like a compound bow!!"
Peter shook his head, moving towards Steve who was carrying a stack of boxes towards the Quinjet, "Uhh, Mr. Rogers?" Peter asked.
"Just call me Steve kid," Cap sighed, although there was no heat to it since he'd said it at least a dozen times since he met the kid to no avail, "what's up?"
"What's going on?"
Steve set the boxes down in the cargo hold, making sure they were strapped down as he spoke, "What, Tony didn't tell you? Dang it, I could've sworn I told him to… anyways, we're taking this training session out of the city to an abandoned area of the countryside where the Avengers with more volatile abilities can let loose without worrying too much about hurting anyone."
Peter blinked, then grinned. This was the perfect opportunity to take Wade's advice!
"Alright, I'm gonna load up in the jet. Unless you need help carrying anything?" Peter asked, trying to wipe the grin from his face before the older man thought to question it.
"Nope! Go on ahead son. We're leaving in ten."
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"Alright people, let's get this training started!" Tony announced, strolling off the jet.
The rest of the Avengers followed, hauling their gear as Peter trailed behind. He'd spent the whole flight trying to figure out what the Avengers had with them that he could hit without risking destroying, and had finally come up with a solution as they were landing.
"Um, Mr. Stark?" Peter asked, walking up to the billionaire.
Tony turned, giving his full attention to his the kid, "Yeah Underoos?"
Peter took a deep breath, "Since I can't figure out a way to explain the fact that I literally cannot hit you guys harder, I wanna show you why."
The scientist blinked, "You wanna… what?"
"I um, I wanna show you. I have an idea about how to do it too."
Tony stared at Peter for a few seconds before… huffing out a laugh. Dang it, Peter.
"Alright kid," wait what? "We'll humour you." oh. "What's this idea of yours?"
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Peter took a deep breath, stepping forward. He was feeling a lot less confident with his plan after Tony had explained what was happening to the Avengers and everyone but Bruce and Natasha had laughed at him. And even Nat had smiled slightly, clearly amused.
"Alright kid!" Tony yelled from near the Quinjet, where Peter had finally convinced the Avengers to stand after five minutes of back and forth. Like, come on, he may still be a kid but did they really believe he was joking around? Seriously?? "We're ready whenever you are!"
Peter sighed quietly, stepping forward again. In front of him, Hulk shifted his stance slightly, Cap's shield dwarfed in his hands as he awkwardly held it as a target for Peter. It was the only setup he could think of, considering the shield was Vibranium — one of the strongest metals in the world known to man — and Hulk was practically indestructible himself.
He could hear the others chatting casually to each other, and a quick glance showed them paying little attention to him. He purposefully blocked out their conversations, not wanting to risk hearing them talking about him.
"Tiny spider ready?" Hulk whispered, and Peter smiled slightly at the green giant. Hulk was one of very few people who didn't criminally underestimate Peter, and he was grateful for that. He'd even told Hulk about the Homecoming Building Incident™, knowing that the not so gentle giant wouldn't have a negative reaction beyond making sure his friend was alright.
"Yep, ready when you are."
At Hulk's nod, Peter took one last deep breath, let it out…
A shockwave of air erupted as his fist met the metal shield, and Hulk flew through the air, his feet digging for purchase in the Earth for a second before he tumbled head over heels. He didn't stop for what seemed like forever, sailing a good five-hundred feet before finally managing to dig his fingers into the ground, digging a deep trench with his fist before finally coming to a stop in the grass.
Silence.
Pure, wonderful silence.
Peter glanced over at them when Tony groaned from behind the rest of the group, having been knocked over by the shockwave from the impact without his suit on, before he shifted his full attention back to the figure in the distance.
"Hulk? You okay buddy?" Peter shouted, beginning to jog towards him.
"Hulk okay." the green giant groaned, lifting his fist into the air in a thumbs up before dropping it back to the ground limply.
That seemed to break the spell on the other Avengers, and they followed Peter over to make sure Hulk was actually alright.
"I'm really sorry Hulk, I should have used less power. I did the calculations and I could've sworn I only used like 40% power but I guess I didn't account for the dirt instead of concrete and…" Peter's rambling quieted to barely audible mumbles as he pulled Hulk to his feet — which, after that show of strength now made a lot more sense to the team — bending over to pick up the shield and hand it off to Cap.
Peter grinned sheepishly as he handed the shield off to the hero, "Thanks for letting me borrow this."
Cap just nodded silently, staring at the deep crater in the Earth from where Hulk had dug his hand in.
They stood in awkward silence for a few minutes, all of them trying to come to terms with what they had just seen while Peter shifted awkwardly.
"Son," Steve choked out, "I think I owe you an apology. Thank you for not killing me during sparring practice."
Clint sat on the ground, putting his head in his hands, "I have been sparring with a seventeen year old who can punch the Hulk half a football field."
"FORTY PERCENT?!" Tony shrieked, "DID YOU JUST SAY THAT WAS FORTY PERCENT?! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS???"
The Avengers dissolved into yelling, apologetic, self-reflecting chaos as Peter watched on in shock, not having expected such a huge reaction and having no clue what to do.
Maybe taking advice from Wade Wilson was a bad idea.
Finally, Tony cleared his throat, stopping his pacing and muttering about 'percentages aren't matching up' and 'teenagers, defying even the laws of physics these days' and clearing his throat, "So," everyone all turned to look at him, "how about we all give our deepest apologies to Pete here, and I mean DEEPEST because we are all horrible friends and role models, then get to our regularly scheduled training after we all agree to never get on Spidey's bad side."
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Steve sighed to himself contentedly as he sat on his couch, running the wax cloth in slow circles over the surface of his shield. After Peter had blown them all away, Tony quite literally, the Avengers had quickly recovered and — after several apologies directed to the kid for trying to push him as they did in training — continued on with the scheduled program.
He shifted, his sore muscles protesting slightly, when he noticed his shield catching the light strangely. He angled the shield again, and his jaw dropped in shock.
A dent.
A tiny, almost unnoticeable dent the size of a pebble. Small enough he could have it buffed out in thirty seconds in Wakanda.
But a dent.
Right where Peter had hit the shield.
…
'Didn't the kid say that was 40% power?!?'