Peter, who just walked out of the kitchen, witnessed everything. Seeing Captain America looking dejected, Peter walked up and patted his shoulder. Captain America turned to look at him.
Peter said, "Don't take it too seriously, maybe this is fate."
Captain America stared at Peter. In this situation, these words didn't sound much like the Amazing Spiderman. Having been comrades for so long, Captain America considered himself quite familiar with Peter. His words seemed to have an underlying meaning, but were also puzzling.
Peter didn't hesitate at all. He looked at Captain America and said, "Haven't you noticed that almost every superhero's relationships aren't very smooth? We keep repeating the same mistakes, haven't you ever wondered why?"
Captain America was stunned on the spot. And if Peter still had Spider-sense, it should be ringing loudly right now. He already knew that revealing this to someone who hasn't discovered the pattern of fate would certainly attract fate's attention, which could lead to misfortune, but he didn't care.
Although Spiderman and Captain America didn't always get along, Spiderman categorized Captain America among those he "need not hide anything from", even if they were enemies, there was no need for mutual deception, only facing each other for a high-level showdown.
"So you mean, we're very likely being controlled by fate?" Captain America clung to it like a lifeline, "If we break free from fate, maybe the ending would be different?"
"Maybe." Peter said.
At this moment, a voice called from the kitchen, Peter turned and went inside. Pamela was carrying a box of cabbage.
"These are for making salad, there are two more baskets of red cabbage over there, can you help me move them..."
"Okay." Peter quickly got to work. He stepped over a pile of vegetable baskets to reach the kitchen door. Eddie was also helping to move ingredients. Peter asked, "Where's the red cabbage?"
"Over there." Eddie nodded in a direction. Peter walked over and saw several stacked boxes. He opened the lid and saw they were all cabbages. He removed the top ones and found the red cabbage at the bottom, picking up those two boxes and walked out.
But halfway through, he remembered Pamela mentioned "baskets", the ones in his hands were boxes, so Peter looked down at the boxes in his hands again, indeed they were red cabbage, could it be that red cabbage comes in different varieties?
Peter thought about it and felt it was quite possible. Because he had tasted red cabbage in salads from various restaurants that tasted a bit different, some were slightly firm without a strange taste, while others were bitter, but some people liked that bitterness.
All the dishes at the banquet were meticulously designed by the chef and shouldn't be casually mixed. Peter quickly returned and started searching for red cabbage again in the warehouse. But after searching around, he couldn't find any other cabbages.
He went around to the back of the warehouse and found another cold storage, the movable type, presumably set up here days in advance. Peter opened the door and walked in, indeed discovering two more boxes of cabbage.
He looked closely, although these boxes didn't exactly qualify as baskets, there was fabric under these cabbages, with corners hanging outside the boxes, looking somewhat like small baskets. So Peter picked up these boxes.
After walking out of the cold storage, he didn't have a hand to close the door, so he turned around and used his shoulder to push it shut, then walked towards the kitchen with the cabbages. Arriving at the kitchen, everyone was bustling with activity, some cutting steaks, others handling seafood, and some picking vegetables.
Generally, meats can't be prepared in advance, otherwise they'd cool down, but cold dishes are fine, especially salads, which can be cut up beforehand and mixed when it's time to serve.
Peter scanned the area and found the chopping station for vegetables. He approached with the boxes and called out that the red cabbage had arrived.
The chef was busy slicing cabbages, he said without turning his head, "Just place them in the back, next to the cabbage boxes."
Peter nodded and put down the two boxes of cabbages. As he was about to check how much the chef had cut, the chef next to him handling seafood said, "Someone get some ice, this ice is melting..."
"I'll go." Peter hurriedly turned to fetch the ice.
What he didn't notice was that the two boxes of cabbage he had just put down, as the temperature gradually rose, slowly unfolded their leaves, getting ready to warm up.
"Who's the head of the auditorium area? Is your security reserve in place over there?" Natasha said as she strode forward with a walkie-talkie in hand, "The boxes are all in the cold storage, you guys hurry up, don't end up being too late..."
"Don't worry." An agent's voice came from the other side, "Cold storage units are already set up, I'll find someone to move the vegetables in a bit."
"Be quick." Natasha advised, "The fighting vegetables that Pamela produced must be stored at low temperatures, if you don't hurry, they'll jump up and hit people on the road..."
"Got it, got it." The agent set down the walkie-talkie, leading people towards the cold storage while pushing carts, on which freezers were placed, specifically designed to store vegetables.
The issue of insufficient security forces has never been resolved. Because all the named superheroes are attending the wedding as guests, they can't be there acting as security. And the cathedral is too big, even if all the agents of the Rebirth Alliance were spread out, it wouldn't be enough. Also for safety reasons, we can't hire handymen from the market, so the agents are doing all sorts of tasks, and there's simply no extra manpower for emergencies.
Ironically, the emergency teams are the most crucial part of security work; every area of the church should have at least one emergency team, places like the auditorium where there are many people should have at least three teams. If there aren't enough people, then we can only rely on vegetables.
The fighting vegetables indeed don't distinguish between friend and foe, but once the situation arises where we need the vegetables' help, not differentiating between friend and foe is no longer a big deal. Or rather, we're not really counting on this thing to knock people down, mainly it's there to stir things up. Even teammates from our own side can't anticipate what these vegetables will do, let alone the enemies. We just need the vegetables to disrupt their formations so that agents can quickly arrive to defend.
The only somewhat tricky part is, these vegetables, having been used with the Extremis Virus, are more lively than those expert plants before, and their aggressiveness is not weak. So they must be stored at low temperatures to prevent them from jumping up and hitting our own people.
They entered the cold storage and began packing. Agents checked the defense map: "12 boxes for the eastern side's A1-A12 refrigerators, western side's A12-A24 refrigerators..."
Suddenly, an agent walked in and said, "Boss, the east side seems to be missing two boxes. A8 and A9 are nowhere to be found..."
The agent turned around, walked out and started checking the refrigerators, finding that they were indeed missing. He quickly took out the walkie-talkie and said to Natasha, "Two boxes of fighting vegetables are missing. Check the surveillance, see..."
He hadn't even finished speaking when he heard Natasha screeching from the other side, followed by a chaotic noise. The agent quickly realized something was happening, hurriedly led the people to run outside.
Supreme Little Superman gets bored easily, and before long felt that greeting guests was too boring, so he ran to the courtyard to see how it was decorated.
The courtyard was busy with people laying tablecloths, setting candles, placing flowers, and tying balloons. Everyone was coming and going, busy with their own tasks, and Little Superman stood there, blocking everyone's path, soon being driven away by Carter.
Not allowed to stay in the courtyard, Little Superman simply went to the kitchen. He couldn't cook, but he thought he could help carry things, maybe even sneak some freshly baked desserts.
He arrived just in time, as they had started baking desserts. Some cookies and similar desserts don't need to be made and eaten immediately; they can be baked first and left there. The pastry chef opened two ovens, one for butter cookies and another for cocoa hazelnut cookies.
Little Superman loved hazelnut-flavored things the most, and when the chef wasn't around, he opened the oven and started gobbling them into his mouth. Others might fear the heat, but he didn't; the answer was that the Man of Steel activated.
In large-scale banquets, there are hundreds of each type of dessert, so Little Superman eating a few isn't a big deal. The problem is, when these large ovens are opened, the heat wave rushes at you, and the room temperature instantly rises by several degrees. He might be the Man of Steel and feel nothing, but it greatly accelerates the revival speed of some refrigerated items.
The dessert area and preparation area were separated by a wall; after eating for a while, Little Superman worried that the pastry chef would return and catch him, so he gathered a bunch into his arms, planning to eat them outside. Coming out from the dessert area naturally led him to the preparation area, and by then, the fighting cabbages had warmed up.
Little Superman heard a noise behind him, turning around, a large bloody mouth suddenly appeared in front of him. You should know, the Extremis Virus made plants grow animal attack organs, so it shouldn't be called fighting cabbage, but biting cabbage. Little Superman got bitten right on the nose by a cabbage.
"Oww!!!!!!!!!"
Natasha was standing between the kitchen and the courtyard checking the progress of the setup. Hearing the scream, she hurriedly rushed into the kitchen. But by this time, the cooks were frantically running outside, some with kitchen utensils in their hands. Natasha insisted on going against the flow, directly getting smacked on the forehead by a frying pan and sitting down on the ground.
"Uh!"
This had to be mentioned, in order to highlight regional culinary characteristics, the cooks invited were mostly locals, among which were quite a few Gotham chefs. These guys had seen every kind of scene, from being slapped with a fish tail while cutting fish, to vegetables jumping up and hitting people as commonplace.
But to say the least about them, they are experienced. They knew that in the cramped and stuffy kitchen, you couldn't fight well; not to mention whether you could win, after a while you'd heatstroke yourself. And without some firearms, dealing with these peculiar ingredients was impossible. Who goes and beats Cthulhu fragments with bare hands?
So they ran outside, not to escape, but to get to an open area and grab firearms. When the guns were in their hands, it was one shot one kill.
Usually, weapons aren't allowed at weddings, but at this time the nearby agents also arrived, starting to shoot. However, they also lacked experience dealing with fighting plants, so their accuracy was truly unimpressive. The cooks couldn't stand it, snatched the guns, and through the kitchen door, shot dead each jumping biting cabbage one by one.
Little Superman was relatively unlucky; he not only got bitten first but was surrounded in his daze. He just wanted to run outside, faced a wave of suppressing firepower, and instinctively jumped back, resulting in even more bites.
When all the cabbages were shot to pieces, Little Superman picked the leaves off himself, swearing loudly.
"What's going on?! What's going on?!! Why are these vegetables hitting people??!!!"
In fact, he cursed harder in his mind: If the writers can't write a story, can they please stop writing?! Go home, kids, go home; in what story could it be more absurd than cabbage suddenly jumping up in the wedding kitchen to bite people?
Little Superman was so angry his nose was crooked, these writers, to ruin a wedding, can come up with any kind of nonsense!