I'm working on Marvel's Spider-Man in American comics.

Chapter 15 Hidden dangers
"I disagree."

In the living area on the top floor of Avengers Tower, Steve Rogers folded his hands and rested his chin on them, rejecting Tony Stark's proposal with a firm voice: "We can't let Spider-Man join the Avengers."

"You were the one who initially approved this idea, Captain." Tony rapped his knuckles on the table. "You said he was well-trained and determined—"

"I just said he was trained. But I didn't know there was a minor under the mask." Steve immediately refuted Tony Stark: "Tony, we are facing a war, and we can't let children participate in war."

Tony lowered his head to look at the table, but immediately raised his head to argue: "Will war spare a child? Captain, you have experienced war and you know what kind of war we are facing. We need an army, not a squad. That child can come in handy."

"I know better than anyone that a soldier without faith is a ticking time bomb on the battlefield, Tony. We're talking about a child here, a teenager who's only gained his powers for a few months. Does he really know what he's fighting for? He might just be motivated by his good instincts to punish evil and promote good, but what the Avengers will face? He's simply not prepared."

The New Avengers Project—the expansion plan Tony proposed after the Battle of New York—aims to build 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 reaches the outer reaches of the solar system, will the overwhelming alien army be stopped by just five Avengers?
It wasn't just the Avengers; Nick Fury was also well aware that the five of them couldn't stop another large-scale alien invasion. After the Avengers broke away from S.H.I.E.L.D. and became independent, S.H.I.E.L.D. formed a superpowered team, the Thunderbolts, led by "Hawkeye" Clint Barton, as a backup plan for the Avengers. Tony and Captain were both well aware of this. And Tony and Steve tacitly avoided working with Nick Fury, a one-eyed man with so many secrets.

But now, the controversy over whether to recruit Spider-Man into the Avengers has filled the meeting room with the smell of gunpowder.

Bruce Banner crunched his chips. As the Alliance's "nuclear deterrent," he mostly stayed in the lab. Unlike the movie universe, where everyone tended to their own individual affairs, the Avengers in this world functioned as a tight-knit unit (despite Thor's frequent absence). He was watching the argument and thanking Janet, the Wasp, for bringing him a fruit plate.

"What are Tony and Cap arguing about?"

"Um, I'm debating whether or not a high school kid should join the Avengers." Banner, his mouth dry from eating potato chips, picked up an apple with a toothpick and started eating. "Honestly, I think this proposal is ridiculous too."

After hearing this, Bumblebee's face was full of question marks.

"High school students? Oh my god, you're considering recruiting high school students and not me?"

Janet van Dyne, Ant-Man Hank Pym's girlfriend and the Wasp, is just the Avengers' manager, not an Avenger.

"Yeah, he's just a little brat, young and doesn't know anything." Tony picked up an orange slice from the fruit bowl and stuffed it into his mouth. "But at least he wants to be a good person and takes action, right? We can train him and lead him to become a qualified hero. Captain, if you think he's not suitable, we can ask him if he's willing to join first."

"I don't think the kid will refuse." Tony gave a sly smile.

But that's exactly what the captain is worried about.

"That kid will idolize us, imitate us, and then rush to the front to prove himself." The captain pushed the fruit plate away, his knuckles leaving white marks on the table. "He will fall into your arms or mine, asking us if he did what he should have done. Just because we gave him expectations that were beyond his ability to bear, he will die in front of us."

"We can protect him and let him move behind us—"

The captain interrupted Tony bluntly once again.

"How can we protect that child in a war where we could die?"

Janet twisted the cherry stem in confusion, while Banner rubbed his temple and complained that he was feeling overwhelmed. Then he finally made his first suggestion: "Since the aliens won't be able to attack us anytime soon, why don't we discuss this issue in a few years?"

"Thanks, Bruce." Tony pointed at Banner and said, "Can you help me calculate when the alien invaders will arrive so I can arrange my schedule."

"forget it."

Banner rubbed his cheeks, as someone with a toothache would do, and asked Janet, "What's Hank doing?"

"I've been stuck in the lab studying the vibranium samples you guys got. I haven't slept in two days." Janet rolled her eyes. "I even have to bring in the food."

"Maybe you underestimated that kid, Captain." Tony was still trying to persuade the captain, or rather, to prove his point, but Steve was also stubborn: "No matter how much you think highly of him, he is just a fifteen-year-old kid, Tony."

"I got my PhD at sixteen. How old were you when you got your first PhD, Bruce?" "Um, sixteen. My first PhD in experimental physics."

"Hey, guys, you won't believe what I found..." Hank Pym came out of the laboratory with messy hair and dark circles under his eyes, holding the previously seized terror transmitter in his hand. Before he could finish his words, he was interrupted by Tony: "When did you get your first doctorate, Hank?"

"Seventeen? Why are you asking?"

Tony smiled smugly, "Aha, I'm a year younger than you."

"You studied engineering, I studied theoretical physics and quantum mechanics. Of course you can handle it at sixteen."

"Anyway," Tony wisely chose to get back to the point and continued to tell the captain, "Fifteen is not young anymore."

"We are not discussing age, but psychological quality..."

"Guys!" Hank interrupted their conversation forcefully. "You have to listen to this. You won't believe what I found in the lab."

"We'll hear more of your scientific creations later, Hank."

"This isn't about science, Tony." Hank's expression turned serious. "This is about our actions."

A few minutes later, the diagram of the disassembled Terror Transmitter appeared on the projection. The Avengers sat together, staring at the schematic, waiting for Hank Pym's explanation.

"This thing is pretty primitive. I initially thought it relied on Chitauri technology," Hank said as he manipulated the projection, replacing all the Chitauri parts in the schematic with existing Earth parts. "But look at this, guys. The person who invented this thing is a good engineer. It can be made with pure Earth technology."

That was obviously beside the point, but the others knew Hank Pym's character after spending so much time with him, and they waited patiently for him to finish describing how incredible the device was and how much fun he had working on it before finally getting to the point.

"The problem is, this system has a fatal flaw. As it's used for a while, the energy utilization rate will continue to increase—yes, you heard me right, it will continue to increase. This means that the device that originally adjusted the transmission intensity will gradually become ineffective, causing the output power to rise uncontrollably higher and higher."

Everyone thought of the final result: explosion.

"Can't it be improved?" Tony leaned back in his chair, staring at the design with his chin in his hand, trying to come up with a solution from the perspective of an engineer and inventor. But even he had to admit that the system had this flaw in its underlying logic and it was irreversible.

"This is a problem of underlying logic. It's a necessary price to pay for designing such a simplified and efficient system. We need to remind the police of the imperfections of this technology to prevent them from using it as a riot weapon..."

"What's the explosion range?"

Poor Hank Pym was interrupted again, but he still told Tony the truth: "If they use Chitauri parts, the power will be greater, reaching a diameter of two to three kilometers. The explosion diameter of Earth technology is smaller and more certain, with a diameter range of about one kilometer."

"Jarvis, what was that man's name..."

"Hermann Schultz." The captain remembered it clearly. Hank hadn't realized anything was wrong yet, but Tony and the captain exchanged glances and realized that the situation was not good.

"How long has he been on the run, Captain?"

"Almost a week."

"But we don't know how many of these flawed weapons he can produce in a week." Tony sighed, "That's the biggest problem."

After the death of Spider-Man in the old Ultimate Universe, Captain America actually blamed himself for not taking good care of Peter.

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(End of this chapter)