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“So,” David eyed the assembled teenage caped crusaders with something akin to alarm, “I don’t suppose anyone outside of the fictitious Iron Man is concerned about PPE?”

“PP-what?”

“Personal Protective Equipment, you know, goggles, safety shoes, bullet proof armor.” They gave him an assortment of blank looks and he sighed. “The sort of stuff that lets you take a licking and keep on ticking, as opposed to ending up in my living room. Again.” He wasn’t going to think about how much replacing the couch was going to cost, he really wasn’t.

“But I’m already bullet-proof.”

“Yeah, but not arrow-proof, apparently.” And oh by the way did you notice none of the rest of Team Teenager shares that ability? No? Well golly-gee maybe that’s why you end up in my living room every other weekend. But he wasn’t going to say that out loud. Yet.

“But, um, that’s what you’re for.”

“No. Nyet. Nr.” He glared at the offending teenager. “My job is not to be out running from battle to battle healing random superpowered meatsheilds who were too lazy or too cool for Kevlar.”
Which, predictably, just pissed them off, and David took a moment to count to ten before trying to salvage the discussion. “Look, try thinking about it like this: Why do you need me?”

“Because we’re out there protecting the city from evil!”

“So I’m supposed to let innocent civilians die because you can’t plan ahead?”

“Well, um, no– wait, what?”

He sighed. “What do you think I do for a living?”

“Banker?”

“Accountant?”

“Retail?”

He gave the last girl a sharp look, but she’d apparently meant it as a joke. “I work at the hospital.”

“You’re a janitor?” The look of horror on their faces was just priceless.

He just about kicked them all out right then, but no, he was supposed to be imparting life lessons or some such crap. The Silver Wisp was going to owe him a dozen beers at this point. “No you idiot, I’m a Pediatrician.”