Chapter 46

On his first day back in Marvel New York, Peter arrived at the clinic looking dejected, his arm suspended in a sling. Shi Le sized him up and said, “Your western trip didn’t go well, I take it.”

Peter sighed, sat down opposite Shi Le, and placed his backpack on his lap—accidentally jarring his injured arm. He yelped, then sighed again. “Forget everything else—I might just not be cut out to be a superhero.”

“What happened? Did you run into a tough opponent?”

“The opponent wasn’t tough at all, but…”

In Peter’s account, Shi Le heard about his absurd western journey with Captain America.

Steve was a seasoned veteran, experienced and skilled, but the teammates assigned to him as Captain America had always been elite warriors—thoroughly trained, even the rookies lacking only in real combat experience.

But little Spider-Man Peter? He was a complete blank slate. He fought with street brawler techniques, relied purely on physical toughness for defense, and had zero tactical training.

To train Peter, Steve deliberately avoided letting S.H.I.E.L.D. arrange logistics—he took Peter out himself.

Their first problem on this road trip was Peter’s insatiable appetite.

Peter’s spider-mutation growth phase hadn’t ended—he needed to eat massive amounts daily. Even if Steve had money, anyone who’d seen road movies knew you couldn’t guarantee decent meals on the road; most just packed instant food in their backpacks and bit into them when hungry.

But Peter ate too much. Everything they’d packed was gone before two meals. They had to change plans: after catching the first bus, they detoured to the nearest small town.

Prices in the town were low, but Peter still ate over a thousand dollars’ worth of food. No credit cards were accepted, and Steve’s cash ran out fast—so their road trip ended before it even began.

Steve had to call Coulson to send money. Eventually, S.H.I.E.L.D. drove them to their destination and solved Peter’s eating problem.

After Shi Le once led Spider-Man and Pikachu to raid S.H.I.E.L.D.’s food supplies, they’d urgently developed a new compressed ration with nutrient solution, capable of supplying far more energy than normal humans needed—avoiding the embarrassment of every restaurant along the way being cleaned out by Peter.

Once they arrived, Steve began taking Peter to scout for ninja traces. Peter learned a lot during this process, but mostly he messed things up.

He had super strength and regenerative ability, but one flaw: he talked too much and couldn’t sit still.

At first, when Peter knew nothing, he was fine—just quietly trailing behind Steve, watching how he gathered intel. But once Peter picked up a few tricks, his innate chatterbox and hyperactive genes kicked in again.

Peter learned a technique, so he thought he could do better. Steve wanted to scale a wall—he leapt straight onto the rooftop. Steve wanted to sneak up and knock out a guard—he crawled across the roof, then jumped down in front of the guard, waved hello, and punched him in the face.

In short, two fighters with completely different styles, with zero coordination, ruined every reconnaissance mission.

Fortunately, the ninjas seemed certain no one would come to the desolate west—their trail was easy to follow. Soon enough, Steve and Peter located one of their outposts.

What happened next was even more absurd.

They were supposed to face only a few low-level ninjas. Steve’s estimate was correct—this trip was just warm-up. The ninjas jumped around and vanished suddenly, but they were weak.

The problem was the vanishing. Steve swung his shield—the ninja disappeared, right into Peter, who was just behind him, about to make a Guilian .

The hard shield slammed into Peter’s arm with a “thud!”—it broke on the spot.

It was the first time in Captain America’s life he’d fired on a teammate—and the result was spectacular.

“Steve told me it’s better to attack from behind, so I swung down from the beam to ambush them from behind—but then he switched to frontal assault. I never knew he was that strong—I flew backward and got slammed into the wall…”

“The ninjas were knocked out in a few hits, but I got knocked out too,” Peter said pitifully.

Shi Le could barely hold back his laughter. Peter glared. “Laugh all you want—I’ve been laughed at for days by Coulson, Natasha, and Ma Te since I got back.”

Shi Le forced himself to stop laughing. “Don’t be upset—you should feel honored. The last person Captain America knocked flying with a shield was the head of Hydra.”

“I know I talk too much, but I can’t control myself—I get like this when I’m excited…”

“Perhaps you’ve heard this saying: ‘Sometimes, words are stronger than fists.’”

A while later, Steve didn’t come—but Natasha did. The female agent rubbed her forehead. “Stark went to talk to Director Nick, ran into Steve coming back, and they tore the place apart.”

“So why are you here? I can’t break them up.”

“Director Nick already pulled them apart, but now the problem is Steve keeps bringing up Stark’s father, and Stark flat-out refuses to believe Steve is his father’s old war comrade, Captain America.”

“Or rather—he believes it, but won’t admit it,” Shi Le said.

Natasha covered her forehead. “As S.H.I.E.L.D.’s senior psychological consultant, you must step in and mediate…”

Natasha saw Shi Le’s intention to refuse. “Listen—here’s the situation: Iron Man and Captain America are screaming at each other. Director Nick wants to mediate, but they both gang up and yell at him.”

“Coulson tried to intervene too, but all three think Coulson favors the other side. Nick thinks Coulson should help him mediate between them. Stark knows Coulson is a die-hard Captain America fan and is sure he’ll take sides. Captain America thinks Coulson is a good guy who shouldn’t be misunderstood by the other two…”

“In short: all three distrust each other, and there’s no fourth party more trustworthy than them.”

“Clearly, Director Nick wants them both to join S.H.I.E.L.D.’s team—that’s why this is happening, right?”

Natasha was slightly surprised by Shi Le’s insight, but she said, “I think this solution benefits everyone. If they operate separately, problems arise—like with Steve and Peter this time…”

“But clearly, the failure of Steve and Peter’s mission was Peter’s problem, not Captain America’s,” Shi Le said.

Peter’s resentment deepened. “Hey, doc, you were just comforting me!”

Shi Le said, “Speaking of mediation, I have a better candidate.”

He grabbed Pikachu by the neck and tossed it into Natasha’s arms.

Natasha held Pikachu’s tiny paws up to her face. “I know you’ve got a talking yellow rat—but what good is this? It can’t even beat Nick, the weakest of the three.”

Shi Le said, “Believe me—sometimes, words are stronger than fists.”

Hours later, night had fallen. A loud banging echoed at Shi Le’s clinic door.

He opened it—Steve, Stark, Coulson, and Natasha were all there. Pikachu was cradled in Iron Man’s armored arms, Stark gripping the yellow rat’s mouth tightly with both hands.

Shi Le let them in. “You’d better not let any reporters see you doing this, Stark—or animal rights groups will go insane.”

“No animal rights group would protect a rat like this!” Stark said, yanking Pikachu’s tail and hurling it at Shi Le.

Coulson looked ten years older. Natasha leaned against the doorframe. “Doc, you really gave us an incredibly effective solution!”

She emphasized “incredibly effective” with gritted teeth.

Shi Le handed his phone to Pikachu to charge. Steve sat down, rubbing his forehead. “God, I have no idea what just happened…”

“I thought Peter was the noisiest person on Earth—but I had no idea…” He winced, clearly the relentless barrage had nearly broken even Steve’s good temper.

“He is the noisiest person on Earth—because Pikachu is a rat,” Shi Le said.

“It cursed everyone in the room with swear words I’ve never heard in my life. Nick couldn’t even get a word in. With a Canadian accent, it ranted from top to bottom of S.H.I.E.L.D.—from Nick Fury’s eye patch to the glass water cup on his desk.”

“It chattered for at least six hours without repeating a single phrase. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s walls might as well be carved with its voice…”

“I don’t know how such a tiny body holds so many words!” Coulson said, voice trembling.

“To shut it up, we had to feed it—it ate a month’s supply of donuts in the office and drained every juice machine. To stop it, we all had to jump in personally!”

“It also electrocuted four cell phones and one of Iron Man’s armors,” Natasha said. “Including Nick’s high-security phone—he now has to personally go to repair to recover the data.”

“But the mediation worked, didn’t it? When you all teamed up to grab it, didn’t you feel the joy of unity?” Shi Le said, smirking.

Stark, the biggest loser, gritted his teeth. “Yeah—I never thought I’d spend half an hour talking to this old fossil about how to cook a rat!”

“I think you now understand what I’ve always said…”

“Yeah…” Steve spoke first. Stark looked at him. Sparks flew between their eyes—but they spoke in unison: “Words are stronger than fists!”