Words Are Mightier Than Fists

On Schiller's first day back in Marvel's New York, Peter arrived at the clinic looking dejected, one arm hanging in a sling. Schiller looked him over and said, "It seemed your trip out West didn't go very smoothly."

Peter sighed and sat across from him, placing his backpack on his lap. He accidentally bumped his injured arm and cried out, "Ah!" Then he sighed again. "Putting everything else aside, maybe I really am not cut out to be a superhero."

"What happened? Did you run into a tough opponent?"

"The opponents weren't tough at all, but..."

As Peter told the story, Schiller heard about his absurdly disastrous trip out West with Captain America.

Steve was a veteran with extensive experience. As Captain America, the teammates assigned to him in the past had all been elite soldiers, hardened through countless trials. Even recruits lacked none of the necessary combat skills; all they needed was more real-world experience.

But Peter, the little Spider-Man, was completely blank slate at the moment. He fought with nothing but street-brawler tactics, relied on his physical toughness to tank attacks, and had even less in the way of tactical awareness.

To train Spider-Man, Steve had deliberately declined to let S.H.I.E.L.D. arrange their itinerary and set off with Peter himself.

The first problem they encountered on their road trip was Peter's bottomless appetite.

Peter was still in the growth phase of his Spider Mutation and needed to eat massive amounts of food every day. Even if Steve had money, anyone who had watched road movies knew that you could hardly guarantee finding a suitable place to eat every meal. Most of the time, you just bought fast food, stuffed it in your backpack, and took a bite whenever you got hungry.

But Peter could eat far too much. Everything in their backpacks was gone before they had even made it through two meals, so after catching their first ride, they had no choice but to alter their route and head for the nearest town.

Prices in that town were low, yet Peter still ate over a thousand dollars' worth of food. They did not accept credit cards there, and Steve soon ran out of cash. Thus, their road-wandering journey ended before it had even begun.

Steve had no choice but to call Coulson to bring him money. In the end, S.H.I.E.L.D. drove them both to their destination and incidentally solved Peter's food problem.

Ever since Schiller had taken Spider-Man and Pikachu to raid S.H.I.E.L.D.'s food stores, they had urgently developed a new type of compressed ration along with nutrient solution. It could provide far more energy than an ordinary person required, preventing the awkward possibility of Peter eating every restaurant along the way completely empty.

After arriving, Steve began taking Spider-Man around to investigate the Ninjas' tracks. Peter learned quite a bit during the process, but he still messed up most things.

He had Superman-level strength and recovery, but there was one problem: he talked too much and could never sit still.

At first, when Peter understood nothing, things were fine. He obediently followed behind Steve, watching how he gathered intelligence. But after Peter learned a little, the chatterbox and hyperactive instincts buried in his bones began acting up again.

Peter learned a few tricks and immediately thought he could do better. When Steve wanted to climb over a wall, Peter leaped straight onto the top of it. When Steve wanted to sneak up on a guard and knock him unconscious, Peter crawled across the rooftop, jumped in front of the guard, greeted him, and then punched him in the face.

In short, two people with completely different combat styles, working together with absolutely no coordination, ruined every reconnaissance operation.

Fortunately, those Ninjas seemed convinced that nobody would come to the desolate West, so their traces were fairly easy to follow. Before long, Steve and Peter still found one of their small hideouts.

What happened next was even more absurd.

Originally, they only had to deal with a few low-ranking Ninjas. Steve's estimate had been correct: this trip was supposed to be nothing more than a warm-up. The Ninjas jumped around and could vanish suddenly, but they were not actually very good fighters.

But the problem lay precisely in that vanishing act. Steve swung his shield, and the Ninja disappeared—revealing Peter behind him, who had been about to sneak up and make a face at the Ninja.

The hard shield struck Peter's arm with a bang!, breaking it on the spot.

It was the first time in Captain America's life that he had opened fire on an ally, and the results had been remarkably effective.

"Steve told me it would be better to deal with those enemies from behind, so I swung over on the rafters to ambush them from the rear. But who knew he'd switch to a frontal attack? I never knew he was that strong. I got sent flying and slammed into the wall..."

"He knocked those Ninjas down in three or five moves, but he knocked me down in one." Peter looked rather pitiful as he spoke.

Schiller truly could not hold back his laughter. Peter said resentfully, "Go ahead, laugh. Coulson, Natasha, and Matt already laughed at me for days when I got back."

Schiller struggled to suppress his laughter and comforted Peter. "No need to be sad. You should feel honored. The last person Captain America sent flying with a shield was Hydra's leader."

"I know I talk too much, but I can't control myself. Whenever I get excited, I'm like this..."

"Perhaps you've heard the saying, 'Sometimes, words are mightier than fists,'" Schiller said.

A while later, Steve did not arrive, but Natasha did. The female agent said with a headache, "Stark went to talk business with Director Nick and ran into Steve, who had just returned. The two of them turned the place upside down fighting."

"Then why are you looking for me? I can't pull them apart."

"The Director already had people separate them. But now the problem is that Steve keeps bringing up Stark's father, while Stark absolutely refuses to believe that Steve is Captain America, his father's old comrade."

"Or rather, he believes it but does not want to admit it," Schiller said.

Natasha rubbed her forehead. "Anyway, as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s senior psychological consultant, you need to step in and mediate..."

Natasha saw that Schiller wanted to refuse. "Listen, this is the situation: Iron Man and Captain America are arguing fiercely. Director Nick wants to mediate, but the two of them have joined forces to insult him."

"Coulson also tried to break up the fight, but all three separately think Coulson is taking someone else's side. Nick thinks Coulson should help him resolve the conflict between the two of them. Stark has long known that Coulson is Captain America's loyal fan and thinks he will definitely play favorites. Captain America thinks Coulson is a good person and should not be misunderstood by the other two..."

"Simply put, all three sides are sticking to their own stories and distrust one another, but there is no more trustworthy fourth party to be found."

"Obviously, Nick wants them both to join S.H.I.E.L.D.'s team, which is why this happened, right?"

Natasha was a little surprised by Schiller's sharpness, but she still said, "I think that would be a good solution for everyone. After all, if the two of them operate independently, there will be many problems, like Steve and Peter this time..."

"But clearly, Steve and Peter's poor performance was Peter's problem, not Captain America's," Schiller said.

Peter looked even more resentful. "Hey, Doctor, you were just comforting me!"

"Speaking of breaking up fights, I have a better candidate."

As he spoke, he grabbed Pikachu, who was sitting beside him, by the scruff of its neck and tossed it into Natasha's arms.

Natasha grabbed Pikachu's two little paws and held it up before her face. "I know you have a talking yellow rat, but what good is that? It cannot even beat Nick, the weakest of the three."

"Trust me," Schiller said. "Sometimes, words are mightier than fists."

Several hours later, it was already dark when enormous bang bang sounds erupted from outside Schiller's clinic door.

When he opened it, Steve, Stark, Coulson, and Natasha were all there. Iron Man, wearing his armor, held Pikachu in his arms while Stark tightly covered the yellow rat's mouth with one hand.

Schiller opened the door and let them in. Then he said, "You'd better hope reporters do not photograph what you're doing right now, Stark. Otherwise, animal rights organizations will go insane."

"No animal rights organization would protect a rat like this!" Stark said. As he spoke, he roughly grabbed Pikachu by the tail and threw it to Schiller.

Coulson looked as though he had aged ten years. Natasha leaned against the doorframe again and said, "Doctor, you really did provide us with an extremely effective solution!"

She ground her teeth on the words "extremely effective."

Schiller handed Pikachu his phone so it could charge. Steve sat down with one hand over his forehead and said, "God, I don't even know what just happened..."

"I thought Peter was the noisiest person in the world, but I never expected..." He wore a pained expression. Clearly, the recent barrage of torment had pushed even good-natured Steve close to collapse.

"He is the noisiest person in the world, because Pikachu is a rat," Schiller said.

"It cursed everyone present with profanity I had never heard in my life. Nick could not even find an opening to interrupt. In a Canadian accent, it cursed everything in S.H.I.E.L.D. from top to bottom, from Nick Fury's eyepatch to the glass cup on his desk."

"It chattered on for at least six hours without repeating a single sentence. Its voice is practically carved into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s walls..."

"I have no idea how such a tiny body could hold so many words!!" Coulson said, his voice trembling slightly.

"To shut it up, we had no choice but to feed it. But it ate an entire office's monthly supply of donuts and drank every last drop from all the juice machines. To stop it, all of us had to take action ourselves!"

"It also blew up four phones and one of Iron Man's mechas with electricity," Natasha said. "That included one of Nick's high-security phones, so now he has to personally go to the repair department and recover the data inside."

"But at least the mediation worked well, didn't it? When you all joined forces to catch it, did you feel the joy of unity?" Schiller said with undisguised glee.

Stark, who had suffered the greatest losses, gritted his teeth. "Yeah. I never imagined that I could chat with this antique for half an hour about how to cook rats!"

"I think you now understand the saying I always use..."

"Yeah..." Steve spoke first. Stark looked at him, sparks flying between their gazes, but they still said in unison, "Words are mightier than fists!"

Thank you to the boss "Yi Anfei" for donating more than twenty thousand Qidian coins in total!!!!!! Thank you!!!

Boss is awesome!