"Better to be strong than pretty and useless."- Lilith Saintcrow

A loud noise work me up and my eyes opened to the sun. Slowly I sat up in bed, wondering why the heck I was outside. The night before came back into my mind, and I remembered now. Andrea was no longer at my side, but heading off to work. Some days I wish she wouldn't.

"Jarvis," I said sleepily, walking on inside. "Coffee." The AI had control of the kitchen and more parts of the house. I was glad I made that update. "Right away, sir." I walked up the stairs leading to my room. The lights flipped on when I entered. Yanking open the closet doors, I pulled out a t-shirt. Tossing it over my head, I then opened up my dresser. Pulling out a pair of boxers and socks, I got dressed.

Lazily I walked back downstairs and into the kitchen. I opened up the cabinet near the microwave and pulled out a coffee mug. Part of the backsplash parted and the coffee machine appeared onto the counter. Sliding it under the coffee machine, it poured the caffeinated liquid into my cup. "Thanks. So, lay it on me Jarvis. What's up for today?"

"You have a conference call at 2 pm. That is all that is entered into the schedule." Great, only one call and I was free for the rest of the day. "Thanks." With a small jump I managed to sit on the island in the kitchen. Leisurely I sipped my coffee and looked out the window.

My mind wandered back to last night, even though I tried to avoid it. Even after all this time, my experience in Iraq was still hard and emotional for me. I usually didn't get too hung up on things like that. The past is the past, and that's all it is. But this…this was different. I wish it wasn't. Not that I wanted to forget, but I would definitely like to tone down the emotional reaction I got from it.

Then I thought about something else I said. How long will you be here? I felt bad now for saying that to her. It was a question that tugged at my mind though. It almost seems too good to be true, you know? Not saying she's faking anything, but something is bound to happen, and that is when she will leave. There's only one problem with that though.

I'm in love.

Yeah, yeah, okay, I admit it. Finally. But not to her yet. I can't help it though! Her wit and sarcasm was up to par with mine. Andrea was absolutely beautiful without looking fake or anorexic. Or like a duck. I don't even get why women do that. What's so desirable about looking like a duck? Not cool. But on topic again, she's lovely. Then there's that whole side to her that's understanding and caring. Even though she hasn't gone though the things I have, she always tries to relate and make me feel better. Then, there's the totally other side to her, the geeky part. She's a total genius and is extremely passionate about what she does. Her intellect and insight is phenomenal. Some people are considered "walking dictionaries" with their large vocabulary. Andrea though, is the whole freaking set of encyclopedias.

"And the results are back, sir." My mug almost slipped from my hands. I did manage a nice little coffee stain on my shirt though. "On which one?! Do we know what it is?" My feet pounded across the floor and rapidly down the stairs. "Yes, sir. Proceed downstairs and I will show you."

My fingers flew across the key pad and I entered into my garage. "Okay, Jarvis." I said impatiently, waiting for the hologram with the answered to appear in front of me. Blue pages few up into the air, a few stacking on top of each other. A 3D model of the structure appeared along side of the papers. Videos of the news showed up on the other side, along with an article from the CDC.

"The Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer has broken the compound and incinerated it." A large graph with different colored spikes appeared before me. "What does it mean?" I asked Jarvis. I was an engineer, not a chemist. "Well, sir, I am not quite sure." I snorted. "Jarvis, you are suppose to know everything. The internet is at your fingertips. Please tell me you didn't blow another one of your fuses. Or fry one of the circuit boards. Those are a pain to change out."

"No, sir. I even ran a full diagnostic scan and picked up nothing. I have searched every article on the internet, including SHIELD's data base, and found nothing on this compound." Wow, that was something new. Usually things like this were leaked onto the internet. "How did you get into SHIELD?" I asked. "You still are granted access sir, even after what happened last time you-" I cut Jarvis off. "Okay, I get it. No trace. So what do you know about it?"

The graph disappeared and the holographic articles appeared. "The compound we have here is based off of influenza, so like Miss Carheart suggested, it does have an influenza base. What is interesting though," Jarvis stated. "Is that this is a very fatal strand. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, commonly known as the bird-flu, is acting as the main substance in this compound. The World Health Organization,WHO, says that in 60% of the cases reported are fatal. It commonly causes about half of the victims to die. Which is occurring right now in Central America, Mexico, and South America."

I put a hand up to pause him. "South America?" I asked. "Yes, sir. Cases are now in South America." It spread awfully fast though. "Okay, but don't they have vaccines for that?" Jarvis pulled up another article. With a flick of my hand, the print became larger.

Vaccines for the bird flu are not mass produced. Some pre-pandemic vaccines have been created and are currently being tested.

Part of the news cast popped up in my head. "Why are they saying it's the swine flu then, when it's the bird flu?" I didn't see why the government would have to cover that up. Sure, it was more fatal, but why lie about it? Something seemed off for sure. "I do not know, sir, but I almost made the same mistake." I flicked the article away with my hand and I was confused now. "Mistake?" I asked. "Yes, sir. That is why I retested the results." Good thing Jarvis could think on his toes. "Okay, so you thought it was H1N1 too?"

The 3D model of the bird flu and the swine flu were placed side by side in the air. "H1N1 consist of influenza C as well as A, sir. When the compound was processed though the machine, no signs of influenza C were found. On first look though, I believed it was H1N1." My mind tried to figure out what Jarvis was saying. "Okay, so then why did you think it was H1N1 if there was not even a trace of influenza C?"

"Well sir, not all of the compound is the flu strand, sir. The other compound is a very toxic chemical to humans. This is indeed a new sort of biochemical weapon."

A new biochemical weapon mixed with the flu. Great, just great. About a thousand questions filled my head. Who planned the attack? Why Central America? Why not New York or LA? "The chemical is classified as a cytotoxic protein, and it is a non-living chemical. Common examples are Ricin and Abrin. It has a latent period of 4-8 hours, then flu like symptoms start to occur."

I stopped Jarvis again. "Okay, well then tell me. Why add a chemical weapon that exhibits the flu symptoms, to the actual flu strand?" A few more articles appeared before me. "Good question, sir. I only have speculations. The bird flu is constantly changing. It mutates quite often. This would make creating a vaccine more difficult. Also, with the cytotoxic protein, the strand looks like H1N1. You would need to conduct further test to determine otherwise. This accounts probably for the H1N1 news reports."

That made enough sense. Jarvis would be more advanced than anything the government was probably using, them and the CDC. Not bragging or anything you know. (Sarcasm, guys. Of course he's better!) "Alright, that would make sense then. But still, why release it in a time of peace in Central America? There's no war going on there. It still doesn't click."

"Well, sir, I have one more theory left." I nodded, signaling for Jarvis to continue. "The release of the flu-chemical hybrid could be to test the weapon. It would look like a pandemic, but it would not really be one. Like a disguise, sir." I thought about that idea. "They can run test on the chemical weapons in the lab!" Jarvis thought ahead though. "Human test are unethical, sir."

Human test. Was someone releasing the weapon because they were merely curious to see what it did to innocent people? This really didn't surprise me though. Raising my arm, I knocked off a stack of papers on my desk. "Almost half of the people who contracted it have died!" My heart ached for them. All that were vaccinated got the wrong vaccine. It wouldn't help squat. There are a lot of sick and twisted people. But my job was to fix it.

"There is something else sir. The cytotoxic protein is a rare one. It seems like it is a cross between Ricin and Abrin. This is called Abricin. It is a relatively new chemical weapon, and hasn't been bought by the government yet."

If it was relatively new, then there must be such a small amount out there. An idea came to mind. "Well, can you find out where it's produced? If its new, then only a few places may be working on it."

"Scanning, sir." I let Jarvis work his magic. Trying to take my mind off of this, I let my eyes wander around my workshop. Walking over to one of the many workspaces, I pressed a button. Up out of the floor rose an armor of many. This one though, was very special. I had taken on a new project for a while, and it sort of became my favorite to work on.

It was harder than the other suits I have built before. Harder to work on, that is. Because of the body shape I wanted to create for it, I ran into a major design error. What's an engineer to do? Engineer something of course.

I present, the carbon spandex. Yeah, spandex. Lovely mental picture, huh? Basically I fortified the stretchy material with a carbon fiber type. It was resistant to breakage but was extremely flexible and elastic like. It was just what I needed. Then on the spandex suit, I was creating the metal armor over it.

How would someone possibly put it on? Easy. Taking the basic design from the Mach 42, I just adapted it. The Mach 42 came apart and then reassembled on the wearer. The spandex underneath the armor was another design problem. So, whenever it needs to disassemble, the seams of the parts become very hot, but only for a second. This allows the spandex to melt only at the seams and not off the back of the armor. When the wearer calls the suit to assemble on them, the seams heat up again, melting the spandex back together. Ingenious, I know.

"One producer of the Abricin found, sir." I spun around at the sudden noise. "Oh, good work Jarvis." Picking up a screwdriver, I fastened part of the arm piece together. There were minor adjustments on the upper half of the suit. The lower half was still a skeleton.

"Where are they at?" I stuck the tool in between a moving part. The suit reacted by moving. I gave a nod, realizing the calibration was going to be generally pretty easy on this one. "Here in California, actually, sir." Wow, maybe Caltech? UCLA? A tiny chemical research lab? I wedge the screw driver into a space, causing a spark. Quickly, I withdrew it. "Who produces it?" I asked, looking to the eye slits in the mask.

"Stark Industries, sir."