Hiya guys.
I've decided to go on for the two-week update schedule from now onwards. I just went back to college on Wednesday, so there's now all that work to be thinking about. A-levels will be tough, but here's hoping I'll be fine.
As always, I don't own Marvel.
Enjoy.
High velocity eggs
Part two of two
Astraea ducks as another projectile is launched at her head. It slams into the wall behind, leaving its' messy impact behind. Already the area is coated with the grim of battle and she's glad for her fast reflexes. If not for them … Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. She rolls behind the nearest object, grateful for the short respite it can provide. It doesn't last long, however, and soon enough her adversary is creeping around the corner, armed and dangerous.
"Would you please," Astraea says, clambering out from behind her hiding place, "stop throwing all these damn eggs at me?!"
Madison smirks and primes her aim. "Not a chance. You started it."
That much is true, Astraea silently concedes. Her best friend is covered in flour and sugar from head-to-toe. Astraea herself has several streaks of the white powdery flour on her bare arms and egg yolk staining her lilac top.
"Yeah, well, that was a mistake," she mutters, covering her face with an empty bowl.
"Damn right it was. You'll have egg in your hair for literal weeks when I'm done here."
A wave of terror flickers through Astraea. "Oh, please don't. You know what happened last time I had eggy hair."
"Yeah, I do." Madison's smile widens. "And it was eggcellent."
"Right … " She rolls her eyes and sidesteps another egg. Shell scatters onto the tiled floor, crunching underfoot. Not for the first time, Astraea is glad they don't have a carpeted kitchen. "These yolks are really cracking me up."
"I think they're eggstraordinary."
Astraea snorts loudly, then clamps a sugar-dusted hand over her mouth. Soon enough, both girls are giggling and laughing like crazy, food fight forgotten. The merry sound of their laughter rings through the large, open-plan kitchen-diner.
Then the door whooshes open and Vision walks in.
Madison spins around so fast she nearly slips on the tiled flooring, feet skidding in her fluffy socks as she grabs at the counter for balance. An egg, held in the same hand that she grasped the countertop with, smashes open. The inside slowly drips down towards the floor. At the same time, Astraea gives an involuntary squeak and steps right into a pile of eggshell. It crunches loudly under her feet. Vision watches them with an impassive, somewhat confused, gaze.
"Uh … Hi Viz," Astraea says, waving a sticky hand at him. "We're just … well, we were baking a cake. Things just got a little, y'know, crazy. I mean, we were mixing all the ingredients, and then I accidentally coated Mads in flour, then we started a food fight. As you do."
The android looks no less confused after her explanation. "I do not understand the purpose of such a fight."
"Testing out high-velocity eggs?" Madison says with a shrug, padding round to the sink to wash her hands. "I dunno, man. It just happens. One minute I'm measuring out some butter, the next I'm ready to join the ghost committee." Her words are punctuated by a heavy glare to Astraea who just blinks back innocently. "Things just got a little eggstreme."
Astraea nods along. "I think I'm in shell shock, Mads. Eggscalty as you intended."
The other human cracks a wide grin. "Uh-huh. I've been doing eggceptionally well if I do say so myself."
Vision watches them, head flicking from one to another as they exchange puns as terrible as the mess they've made. Flour, sugar, and egg coats virtually every possible surface, including both of the bakers turned food fighters. Both girls wear wide grins.
Suddenly, Astraea winces and rubs her ears, tendrils of panic sneaking onto her face. "I think we might wanna clean up real quick. There are about three people heading this way and we've got an intensely messy kitchen … "
"Run?" Madison asks, eyes flicking between the door and the coated worktops. "Or how much do you think we can clean before they turn up?"
"Er … enough? We've gotta try, right?"
The two girls scramble to sweep up fallen eggshell, wipe down surfaces, and mop eggy residue off the floor. Vision floats above them, occasionally passing bowls and clothes between the two as they work in tandem. Soon enough, the kitchen is virtually spotless and they resume cake baking. Astraea finishes measuring out the butter, and Madison stands to sieve a new batch of flour into a clean bowl. All traces of the food fight are removed except for ...
"Do I even want to know why you're both covered in egg, flour, and who knows what else?" Rhodey steps through the door coming from the main building, holding a gym bag in one hand.
"They were having – " Vision starts as he slowly levitates back down again before being cut-off by rapid words from Madison.
" – having some trouble reaching the flour," Madison finishes, flashing a nervous look to Astraea.
"Yes! That's right; we couldn't reach the flour. Too high. So, I … stood on Mads' shoulders to get it but then it … it all came down on top of us?"
"And cracked the eggs I was holding."
"So, you see, it was just an accident. Just a simple, accidental accident."
Rhodey doesn't look convinced. "Right … I'll leave you to it then."
The older man slowly opens the door to the majority of the Avengers' personal quarters. Behind the sleek wooden door are the offices, library, games room, home cinema, the personal gym of the Avengers, and all the Avengers' bedrooms. It's a running joke between the team that the first step to becoming an Avenger is getting to come into the common room.
Only after Rhodey has left fully and shut the door do Astraea and Madison relax. Vision had very nearly blurted out all about the horrific mess he'd found them in. Not good. Aside from the fact they'd wasted over half-a-dozen eggs, it'd be a little hard to have to explain to all the older Avengers why they'd decided to coat the kitchen in eggs, flour, and sugar. Astraea shudders at the thought; she wouldn't want to face the 'eyebrows of disappointment' again from Steve.
"Perhaps we outta shower and change clothes before we finish up." Madison places her mixing spoon in the floor, picking at her coated t-shirt with distaste on her tanned face. "Y'know, before someone else gets suspicious."
"Yeah but … cake!" Astraea whines, pouting her bottom lip playfully. Madison swats her on the arm. "Hey! I just think, might as well finish now and not get any other clothes mucky."
"I suppose … but who'll watch the cake?"
Astraea turns to the android, who has been silently observing the two as they finished making the cake mixture, ready to pour into the cake tins. "Vision – would you mind watching the cakes for us? I mean, when they're in the oven an' all. Then Mads and I can shower and get changed and stuff without worrying about them."
"I shall endeavour to watch your cakes well," Vision confirms, settling down to sit in front of the oven.
Satisfied, Astraea turns to Madison with a look that says 'see, told you everything will be fine.'. The other female shrugs and heads towards her room, quickly followed by Astraea.
oOo
When the two young women return, refreshed from their showers, Vision is taking the cake out of the oven with his bare hands. Both of them gape at him, brown and green eyes going wide with shock and surprise. He lifts the tins out of the hot oven one at a time, setting them down on the cooling racks already placed nearby and turns around to wave hello.
Madison recovers first from the scene before them. "Thanks, Viz! Now I know who I'm gonna ask when I need things out of the oven. Who needs oven gloves when there's a super android who can do it for you?" She steps further into the room, grinning cheerfully.
"How are your hands not all melted, Viz?" Astraea finally asks, unable to stop herself from examining the android's hands. "I mean, what's the melting point of vibranium anyways? Your hands don't seem to be all melted so I guess it's higher than the temperature needed to cook a cake but still, ya can never be too careful. Maybe we should investigate and see what the – "
"Alright, maybe we should save the science for later? Perhaps we oughta sort out our main problem." Madison turns to Astraea, a serious look in her bright eyes (which somehow still have a dusting of flour just below them).
"Yeah … " Astraea agrees hesitantly. "What kinda problem is this?"
"The one about how we're going to decorate this cake of ours!"
Astraea gives a fake pout. "And that's more important than science?" She questions, gesturing wildly through the air as she says the last word.
"Uh-huh. Come on Mad Scientist, we need to make a fabulous looking cake so hit the internet and let's do this." Madison directs Astraea to sit down at the breakfast bar where both their StarkPads are currently sitting.
"I was thinking of checking out Pinterest for some ideas. Y'know, there's loads of pretty designs on there," Madison says, tapping away on the screen. Several pictures of fancy cakes appear on the slightly smudged screen.
Astraea rolls her eyes and nudges Madison with her elbow. "Yeah, and you know what happens whenever we try those."
"A catastrophe!" Both girls say in unison.
"Besides," Astraea continues, "what's wrong with covering it regular icing? Or just dusting with icing sugar. It is a Victoria sandwich cake after all." She gives the cooling cake a thoughtful look. "Although, I think we should add buttercream in the middle. It does, y'know, make it taste nicer."
"You just want to make extra buttercream and eat it all!" Madison accuses with laughter in her eyes.
"Yeah, well, that doesn't even matter. This cake is for the VR people so there."
"That makes no sense at all, but okay. How about making the Avengers' symbol on the top?"
Astraea considers for a moment. "Alright, but you can paint the 'A'. You've got a better hand for the fancy decorating stuff."
"Another of my wonderful skills," Madison jokes as she pulls up an image of the Avengers' symbol on her tablet. "We do have blue food colouring, don't we?"
"Uh … " Astraea pulls a face as she thinks, forehead creasing into a frown and lips pouting slightly. "That is an excellent question to which the answer is … um … I don't know?"
She shrugs and slips off her stool, padding over to one of the drawers of baking supplies. There's a whole drawer dedicated purely to decorations – including sprinkles, marshmallows, hundreds and thousands, tiny icing snowflakes, and food colouring of just about every shade and colour possible. But blue is one colour they're currently lacking in after an enormous ocean-themed cake concocted a week ago by Natasha and Sam for World Ocean Day on the 8th of June. As Astraea inspects the bottle, she notices with a slight sigh that the team haven't gotten around to replacing it yet.
Madison frowns when Astraea relays the news back to her. "Guess we'll have to go shopping then. Shame – I was hoping to stay in this afternoon." Astraea raises an eyebrow at her as if to say 'you helped cause the need for the cake, you can buy the blue food colouring'. "Ugh … but I guess I could do with a little trip out with my best friend. We can have a little trip out. Together."
"Sneaky, sneaky, Mads," Astraea mutters at her friend's words, playfully scowling until an idea comes to her. "We could get some more of those muffins that everyone devoured in like, three seconds flat."
"I seem to remember you eating at least three of them." Madison tilts her head at her friend, a smile playing over her lips. "Do you remember that?"
Astraea smirks. "I remember no such thing. Anyways, I bought all of them so you know, I'm allowed to eat as many as I want. Shall we get going?"
"Sure." Madison shrugs and heads to the door, pulling on trainers as she does so. "See ya later Vision – don't eat all the cake."
Snorting with laughter, Astraea leaves with her and tugs on her ankle boots. "Thanks for your help, Viz. And … uh, please, please, please don't tell anyone about our little food fight earlier. I think we'd really rather they wouldn't find out."
"As you wish," Vision replies, not looking up from his book. "But the others could always check the surveillance footage if they really wished to know."
"Voldemort's nipple!" Astraea almost – but not quite – trips over as she comes to a sudden stop in the doorway after hearing Vision's words. "I forgot out that. Hmm … guess Mads and I just have to hope nobody'll bother to check anything like that."
With those words, Astraea heads outside to where Madison waits with one of the several on-base cars. This time, the ex-agent has opted for a practical small SUV and not one of the two-seater sports cars kept around for missions. After Madison had taken one of them (a lime green one with black leather seats) on a previous shopping trip, they'd elected to never take one again. Having to sit with a good part of the food piled up around you didn't make for the best journey home as the passenger. Astraea shudders slightly at the memory as she clambers in. Hopefully, this journey will be much more comfortable than that last one.
oOo
The shopping trip is largely uneventful. They grab several packages of muffins (in chocolate, blueberry, and toffee flavours) and enough blue food colouring to last for the apocalypse. Well, Astraea muses, maybe they didn't get quite that much but they grabbed plenty. Enough to fill a small shopping bag with the small bottles of blue liquid.
Vision is engrossed in his book when they return to the compound. And still standing up in the corner of the room. Madison nods towards him as she walks in, lugging two shopping bags filled with cupcakes and a few other bits and bobs.
"Perks of being a robot person," she mutters softly under her breath. "I'd be able to stay up all night and binge watch but still be able to work fine in the morning. It's a win-win situation."
"Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to eat anything and really enjoy it," Astraea counters, dumping her bags onto the worktop. She pulls out a handful of food colouring bottles and stands up next to the bag before reaching to pull open the drawer of baking supplies.
Madison peeks over Astraea's shoulder into the drawer then back to the full bag. "There's no way we're getting all of those in there, Rhea. I think we maybe, uh, got too many? Little bit overboard, don't ya think?"
"Eh … It'll be fine. We'll just have to make a bunch of blue cakes and stuff. Although," Astraea picks a bottle up, eyeing it with an evil grin, "I'm sure we could find other uses of this stuff."
"Agreed. Now, let's get doing that icing."
oOo
After spending another hour decorating the cake (and arguing about who got to eat the most icing), the pair of best friends finally finishes their project. The cake is coated with a thick layer of buttercream arranged to display the Avengers' symbol and sandwiched with another thick layer of lurid blue buttercream icing. Astraea had tipped nearly an entire bottle of blue food colouring into the blue of buttercream icing producing a ridiculously blue colour.
"It's revenge for making us go through the simulation. We go through the sim, they can have icing they can barely stand to look at," she had explained, hands dusted with icing sugar.
Now that they are finally ready, Madison takes a few photos on her StarkPad for FRIDAY to upload to the Avengers' official social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook. The team have a group account on each of the sites and apps, plus separate accounts for each of them. FRIDAY manages all accounts to keep them secure and protected, as well as uploading things to the official group accounts.
Astraea boxes the cake up to protect it on its journey, then the two girls leave to deliver the cake to the people in the Virtual Reality department. It's only a small department at the moment with around 15 staff members, but they hope to develop it soon. But for now, they'll be getting a cake delivery and not extra workers.
oOo
By the time the girls return from the VR department, the common room is full of Avengers, intently watching something on the screen. There are roars of laughter echoing throughout the room and filling the large common room with the sound. Curious, Madison quietly drops the now empty cake box onto the shiny countertop and gestures for Astraea to follow her just around the room divider to see what could cause the team to cackle like a pack of wild hyenas.
Once they see the screen both girls' cheeks flame up in embarrassment. Astraea looks down at her feet, grinning to herself faintly and fiddling with her blue gemstone bracelet. Madison reacts a little louder.
"Aw, for fuck's sake! How – by merlin's bloody underpants – did you manage to find out about that?" Her startled cry drags the others' attention away from the screen. FRIDAY pauses the video of the security footage, just as another egg is sailing towards Astraea's position, crouched against the cupboards.
The others all adopt innocent looks. Madison glares at Vision, who simply meets her gaze.
"Oh, I did not tell anyone, in case you are wondering," Vision says, calm and collected under Madison's furious gaze.
"Yeah, well, how come you're all watching it then? Riddle me that, huh?"
Natasha leans forward, resting her head on the back of the sofa. "There's this little thing called us actually checking the security footage." She grins wickedly. "And we could you chatting about it. FRIDAY helped tremendously."
Madison mutters, "Traitor," in the direction of the ceiling just as Astraea asks, "So how long have you been watching it?"
The Avengers exchange looks.
"I think this is the third time," Sam calls out, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"Nah … has to have been at least the fourth time," Rhodey counters.
Astraea moans and buries her head in her arms. "Ugh … could this get any worse? I can't believe you've actually watched that stupid thing multiple times."
"Well," Rhodey starts, a wicked smile forming on his face, "I think it was eggcellent."
"Eggceptional," Wanda adds. "Really cracking."
The team all laugh again, and Astraea and Madison settle down in the nearest empty seats. FRIDAY turns the footage back on again. Madison tucks her feet up and turns to exchange eye contact with each of the Avengers.
"So, who did you think won?"
There we have it. This entire chapter came from the phrase 'high velocity eggs' and my love of puns. Eggspecially egg ones. This just sort of sprung up around it. I wanted a food fight between friends and it ended up being in the middle of making a cake. Funny how plot bunnies work sometimes.
Anyways, that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed, and I would like to thank my readers for taking the time to read this little patched together collection of little snapshots in the life of my altered universe Avengers.
Look-for-the-miracles
