Chapter Seven

The results of the blood test were not what any of them had been expecting. Ace had been waiting with Peter in the infirmary while the two scientists worked in the medical lab next door. Ace was nervous. Peter was nervous. Everyone was nervous.

When the two men returned, Ace was ready to nervous himself to Jupiter and back. Both men were watching Ace with a sense of awe and their own nervousness. (Everyone was nervous). Bruce cleared his throat. "Ace, your test results are, well..." Ace swallowed. "You remember how we told you you might have a healing ability?" Ace nodded.

"Well, you do. The cells in your body have an incredibly fast rate of regeneration, it's really incredible. We've never seen anything like this! Instead of dying when a cell becomes injured, your cells will repair themselves on a molecular level, almost too fast to be seen by the naked eye! I did notice that your superoxide dismutase is unusually high too, which might also be a contributing factor, and may make it impossible for you to be drugged or poisoned, which might be an issue in the future with painkillers, but I'm not sure if you'd even need them–"

"Bottom line," Tony interrupted, "is that you have regeneration powers beyond anything in known history."

Ace looked down, twisting his fingers together. "So, what does this mean? Am I going to be like, locked up and experimented on or something?"

"God, no, we wouldn't do that! The Avengers and Shield are dedicated to protecting people like you."

"So...there's no way I can just go back to how things were, is there?"

"Before?" Peter asked incredulously. "You were living in the streets, Ace, do you really want to go back to that?" Peter's voice was gentle as he lightly gripped Ace's hand.

"Things were easy back then." Ace muttered. "I didn't have to deal with...this." Tony and Bruce made eye contact, and left the two teenagers in the room alone. Ace was obviously having trouble processing what was going on, and Peter might be the best person to help him through it.

Peter wrapped his arm around Ace's shoulders, pulling him into a comforting side-hug. "I know this is a lot to take in," he whispered against the other's hair. "But it gets easier. I promise. It's going to be hard at first, but the good news is that you've lived with this your whole life already, right?"

Ace hesitated. Now that he thought about it, he never seemed to sustain any injuries that lasted more than a few days, tops. It had been that way for as long as he could remember. He nodded into Peter's collarbone.

"See? This isn't anything new. You're just aware of it now. It'll take some time to get used to, and we can help you with that. There might be hidden parts to your power that you still haven't discovered yet, and Shield and the Avengers can help. I know this is a lot of change all at once, and it probably seems really scary right now. It was the same way for me. But I promise, it will get easier. But you have to let us help you."

Ace nodded again. Peter was right, this was scary right now, in fact, it was terrifying. But if Peter could promise him with absolute conviction that everything would eventually be okay, then he trusted Peter. And if Peter trusted Shield and the Avengers, then Ace could too. That still didn't mean he liked any of them.

Ace was offered a room in the tower. Turns out many of the Avengers would be like him if they didn't have rooms there. Vision, Wanda and Natasha among them. Peter stayed at the tower often, but spent the nights at his apartment with his aunt May. Most of the other Avengers stayed at the tower as well, but had their own apartments or houses elsewhere.

Ace chose the room right next to Peter's (when he sporadically stayed overnight), across from Natasha. He was introduced to each Avenger as he passed them during a tour of the facility Peter led him on.

The tower was more expansive than he had first thought. The highest floors were personal quarters, where Tony and Pepper lived. Below that was the business floor, then the Avengers' rooms, and below that was the common floor, which held a living room, kitchen, and gym/training area. The rest of the floors were rented out to various businesses. There was a secret underground level that housed the Avengers' vehicles and the like.

Ace was impressed. His own room was huge, with a private bathroom, one wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, a walk-in closet, a king-size canopy bed, and an oak desk. He didn't know what to do with all the space. When he told Peter he didn't have any personal belongings to pick up, the boy was absolutely shocked and offered to take Ace shopping later.

Needless to say, by the time night rolled around, Ace was overwhelmed and exhausted. He used the shower (which, he decided, he really liked) and crawled under the covers, dressed in his boxers and an oversized Metallica shirt Peter had lent him.

He rolled onto his side so he could see the city skyline through his windows. If there was one thing Ace loved indefinitely, it was the stars. They were fluid; always changing but somehow always the same, steady and strong. And in the insanity of his life right now, Ace needed something to reassure him.

Because if the stars could change every night and still be beautiful, then maybe Peter was right, and this change wouldn't be so bad. Maybe Peter was right, and things would get easier.

The next morning Ace was woken by a soft knocking on his door. He groaned and rolled over, shoving his pillow over his head. During the night, he had evidently kicked the blankets away, used to sleeping with little to no covers, and they were now tangled around his legs.

He didn't want to get out of bed but the knocking came again. He sighed and tumbled out of the large bed, dragging the sheets halfway onto the floor with him. He lumbered over to the door, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

It was Peter. The brunette stood on the other side of Ace's door, dressed and very awake-looking. Ace squinted at him. Peter smiled. Then his eyes tracked down Ace's form and realised the boy was wearing very little clothing, just the shirt Peter'd lent him, with the edge of his boxers just barely visible under the bottom edge and he turned bright red.

Ace was too tired to process bashfulness or embarrassment. He just grunted "What do you want, I was asleep," and finger-combed his hair back from his face.

Peter cleared his throat. "Well, I said I'd take you out to pick up some clothes, right?"

Ace blinked at him. "It's like six in the morning Peter."

"It's quarter to ten, actually. I thought you'd be awake by now."

Ace sighed, looking back at his still-warm bed longingly. "I can be ready in fifteen minutes."

Ace dressed back in his clothes from yesterday, quickly brushing his teeth and washing up with the supplies in the bathroom. He finger-combed his hair and braided it back from his face, using one of the cheap ponytails he kept around his wrists to tie off the end before exiting the bathroom to see Peter...

Pacing around the ceiling, focused on his phone. Ace smiled a little. "Don't make me come up there, young man," he called teasingly.

Peter stuck his tongue out and dropped back to the floor. "I'm older than you. You really should respect your elders, boy."

Ace stuck his tongue out right back. 

Depressing fact: A goose will only mate once. So if you ever see a goose by itself, standing out in field for example, it's alone bcuz its mate died and it will never find a new one and is now lonely forever.