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Hi, I’ve always wondered- why do you write Steve referring to Peter as “little guy” so frequently (instead of any other terms of endearment or just ‘Peter’)? Just curious!
Hey! Thank you so much for your ask, and for reading my fics! 💗
Steve does call Peter by his name pretty often, but his term of endearment for him is the ‘little guy’, as you’ve noticed. There’s a couple of reasons why I chose this.
One, in my eyes, Steve doesn’t use a lot of nicknames for his loved ones, preferring to stick with one or two. He calls Tony ‘sweetheart’ and the Irish ‘mo gra’ in some of my fics, which means my love. For Peter, I wanted to go with something a bit different that Tony’s ‘buddy’, and ‘son’ just seemed too… I don’t know, I just can’t picture Steve calling Peter that. Little guy is sweet without being too sugary and since Peter is pretty small, it fits him well.
Two, in The First Avenger, when Steve is chosen to join the SSR, Dr Erskine says, “Well, there are already so many big men fighting this war, maybe what we need now is the little guy.” This is an important line in that it shows his acceptance of Steve even though he’s not the traditional soldier-type. This had a big impact on Steve, as later when the two of them are having their toast in Steve’s barracks room, Steve says, “to the little guys”. At the time, Steve had no idea that the serum would transform him size-wise, so he was prepared to spend the rest of his life just doing what was right as a ‘little guy’. It’s always been my headcanon that Steve sees the same kind of strength and determination in Peter, since he’s on the smaller side too 💗
I hope this makes sense! Thank you so much for the ask! 💗
