Chapter Twenty:
Early hours of the morning rang the bell of the apocalypse. The whole complex shook violently; Vivian leapt from her bed and heard Steve shout 'Earthquake'
"Don't be an idiot" she said leaning on her doorframe her tablet in hand "it's an explosion. The vibrations are completely different"
"How can you be sure?" he asked,
"You're asking the arsonist? I've set off enough large scale explosives to feel the difference" she stared down at her screen "I have a feeling our alien guest is slightly pissed off and we might want to suit up. Fighting in pj's isn't exactly wise or fashionable"
"Like you're one to talk" Alice mocked,
"My existence is fashionable enough" Vivian laughed.
Heading down the stair fully clothed, Vivian made a pit stop in the landlady's personal garage, "Vivian what the hell are you doing?" the British girl appeared moments later with small satchel "what's in there?"
Vivian had a fox like grin as she walked past Steve "what do you think?"
"I thought Fury confiscated them"
"I accidentally forgot to mention the ones stashed in my bike"
The trio followed the sounds of screaming and explosions. "We need to get civilians evacuated" Steve ordered,
"I'll leave that to you two then" Vivian grinned darting off between cars that had been left in the middle of the road "I'll be the distraction"
"Hey!" Steve shouted
"People take orders better from people in...Uniform" she laughed creeping behind the cars so Apocalypse didn't see her coming. She pried open a petrol cap on a car inserting a screwed up piece of cloth and lit it with her Zippo before diving behind another car as the flame met petrol "Well I hope that caused a nice distraction"
"Foolish mortal, you know you cannot win against the great APOCALYPSE!" the alien was stood on top of the car she was hiding behind
"Well I certainly can't" she retorted letting off a flash grenade and moved to another hiding spot this time under a truck. 'I'm going to need something with a bit more bang' she hummed looking around she found Vivian found a burst of inspiration, a broken exhaust pipe and a hand full of nails and glass. Capping one end with a rock and duck tape: which she keeps on hand always. She filled the pipe with nails and glass before adding far too much explosive capping the top with another rock and more duck tape. She crawled from under the truck and looked around for the enemy
"So the mouse comes out of hiding"
Lighting the fuse she turned and threw it at the alien, the fuse was burning much quicker than she thought 'wrong fuse' Vivian spun around and ran towards another car. Alice and Steve were on their way after clearing the "PIPE BOMB!" she warned as the bomb exploded. Vivian was seconds too slow diving behind a car, pieces of shrapnel caught her in the shoulder and side. "Son of a-" she cursed clutching her side. Her hiding place once again found this time with force the car was overturned by thick metal wires which latched onto her waist whisking her off into the air
"Vivian what the hell are you doing?" Alice shouted
"Being a decoy!" Vivian replied flashing a thumbs up "It's working" the wire tightened around her waist pressing the shrapnel further into her side "yup that's a nail" she groaned.
"Don't move!" Steve hollered throwing his shield like a Frisbee
"I'm not going anywhere" she covered her head with her free arm as the shield whizzed past her face but Apocalypse batted the shield away like a toy.
A more effective attack came from a blast from Ironman followed by Thor sending a huge bolt of lightning through Apocalypse which in avertedly raced through Vivian since she was still connected to the alien, she couldn't help but scream in pain.
"More fools wish to defy me" new more challenging opponents arrived, so Vivian was thrown away like a rag doll.
Vivian braced for a painful landing on the tarmac but it never came,
"Vivian, are you okay?" Loki had caught her bridal style in mid-air, she gave a thumbs up
"I've been better" she crocked "where's Hawkeye?" Loki carried her over to the master sniper, she pulled a small gun that resembled a dart gun but a little bigger, and inserted a translucent bullet with a silver liquid in it. She passed the gun to the assassin "Make sure you aim for his neck. And don't drop it...its pretty toxic to humans" Vivian warned,
Barton accepted the gun and added it to his repertoire of weapons "thanks. Leave it to me" he smiled, Loki picked Vivian up again even though she tried to struggle and carried her somewhere safe,
"I'll be fine" she sighed, reaching into her wound to pull out one of the nails that was irritating her the most, "good god, that feckin' hurts" she growled "good catch by the way"
"I won't leave your side. Not after what happened last time" Loki said.
After Loki grabbed Vivian I figured he wasn't about to let her go so we would need a new decoy if the others were going to get rid of Apocalypse,
"Give me a boost will you?" I said to Steve,
"What are you planning?" he asked clearly worried about what I was about to do
"Plan? Who says I have a plan" I laughed running at Steve who boosted me up with his shield and sent me soaring through the air for one glorious moment before Stark caught me,
"What are you thinking?" he yelled
"I have no idea, drop me on his back will you?"
"You got it" Stark dropped me square in the middle of Apocalypse's back and I loaded my .44 with the last of my armour piercing rounds and sent them point blank into any soft spot I could find,
"INSECT YOU DARE CHALLENGE THE MIGHTY APOCALYPSE!" Apocalypse yelled trying to reach around to throw me off thankfully he couldn't reach his back either so I was safe or at least I thought I was.
Apocalypse suddenly grew to the size of the empire state building and with nothing to hold on to I went hurting towards the ground rather fast. My fall was broken thank god by Dr Banner or Hulk as he was currently who set me down on the ground after catching me,
"Thanks" I said getting a grunt in return,
"What were you thinking?" Steve asked running over to me, "You could have been seriously hurt"
"Well I wasn't was I?" I said, "Damn I'm all out of armour piercing rounds" I started fishing in my bag for anything else I could use and came across some blanks, some normal rounds and some flash bang rounds, "Better than nothing" so I loaded up my gun with the ammo I had left and did my best to distract Apocalypse in order to let the others at him,
"YOU ARE A PUNY MORTAL AND YOU DO NOTHING BUT ANGER ME!" Apocalypse yelled sending me crashing into a cab with one sweep of his hand,
"Ow" I groaned picking myself out of the cab, I noticed my side was bleeding badly and saw that the driver's side window had smashed with the impact of me hitting it and most of said glass was in my side, head and arms, "This is gonna mean stitches" I groaned, "Fuck" picking myself up anyway I noticed Clint fire one single bullet into Apocalypse's neck,
"YOU THINK ONE BULLET WILL DEFEAT ME!" Apocalypse yelled still lording it over everyone, or at least he was until he suddenly shrank down to human size and toppled over,
"Well that was anti climatic" I said hobbling over to Steve and the others looked like I'd broken my foot as well when I slammed into the cab,
"Yeah well let me just check" Vivian picked up a stick that had fallen on the ground and poked Apocalypse a few times,
"Yeah he's dead" Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief
"So what do we do with him now?" I asked
"We call Fury and he deals with it" Stark said,
"Good because I really don't think any of us could lug him all the way back to the super secret heli pad" I said leaning on Steve, "Let's just leave him there for a while yeah? I'm starving. I didn't get to eat this morning"
"There's a shwarma joint about a block away" Stark said, "Let's get shwarma"
"Sure why not. I have no idea what it is but anything sounds good right about now"
"I second that motion" Vivian said, "We just have to find Bruce first"
They managed to find Bruce who was back to his usual size and clothed, he found clothes somewhere,
"Hey Bruce we're off for shwarma" Tony announced he joined the group,
"Same place you found last time?" he asked,
"You bet"
Steve insisted on carrying Alice since she'd broken her foot. Vivian was walking down the street with her shirt half hitched up digging pieces of glass and nails out of her side with her fingers.
"Are you sure you should do that walking?" Loki asked instep with Vivian,
"probably not" she felt around assuming she'd removed the shards, "hold this" Vivian said passing Loki her bag taking out a roll of duck tape before taking her shirt off in the middle of the empty street and passed it to the stunned god who was staring at her keenly,
"Whoa what did I miss?" Tony had noticed they hadn't been keeping up and turned round to see Vivian topless, which then made everyone else turn round though Steve quickly averted his eyes
"What?" she shook her head and placed the non-sticky side against her wounded wrapping that a few times tightly then twisting it to wrap the sticky sides together "There we go, all fixed" Vivian reached out and grabbed her shirt and bag back and carried on walking "stop staring"
"We expect it from Alice not you" Natasha laughed,
"Why did you use duck tape?" Barton questioned, normal people usually use bandages when they're injured and duck tape for fixing everything else,
Vivian shrugged "ran out of bandages and as they say if you can't duck it fuck it" she quoted
"That usually applies to appliances and wires" Tony remarked as they carried on walking after Vivian's brief exhibition
"Meh duck tape is for everything"
"Including makeshift handcuffs" Alice chimed in from her spot on Steve's back since he insisted on carrying her piggy back style
They entered the shwarma joint and sat down earning several bizarre looks from the people that worked there. What a sight they were, two bizarrely dressed men, a guy in a metal suit, the rest of them battered and bruised all huddled round eating shwarma, all laughing and joking about the destruction outside.
Fury's team cleaned up the city in record time and Apocalypse's body was brought on to the heli pad and dragged to a secret room somewhere no one knew about and even when I went sluthing to try and find said room I got blocked by Maria Hill insisting I go to the med bay for stitches and to have my foot looked at,
"I'm fine honestly" I said, "I want to know what's happening with our not so jolly and not so green Giant" I said trying to get past her
"I really think you should at least have your foot looked at" my foot was currently swollen and turning a rather alarming shade of purple
"Fine" I hobbled off towards the med bay where Vivian was currently sitting on a bed while Bruce pulled the nails out of her side,
"Hey did you find any - ow - thing?"
"Nope got cock blocked by Maria Hill" I said hopping up on a bed and grabbing an ice pack for my foot
"Shouldn't you get that looked at?" Bruce said looking at my purple foot
"I put some ice on it the swelling goes down the bones knit back together"
"Only anatomy doesn't work like that. You'll need a cast and stitches for your wounds. And the glass taken out of them" Bruce said
"Remember our last incident with needles? I got tazered and almost tried to swing a chair at Viv" I said
"I have a plan" Vivian called over one of the nurses and whispered something in her ear. The nurse nodded and left returning moments later with Steve, "We need your help" Vivian said
"Sure"
"Take your shirt off" Vivian said as Bruce bandaged up her side, "she needs stitches and we all remember the last time"
"You don't have to take off your shirt" I said just don't let me see the needle" I said. So Steve held my hand and didn't let me see any needles and I was able to get my stitches and cast without anyone getting hurt.
It was at least a week later when Fury called us all in again,
"We're getting rid of Apocalypse once and for all" Fury said
"What are you going to do with him?" I asked trying to scratch my foot with a pen I'd found sitting on the desk. The damn cast was itchy as all hell
"We've built a container and we're going to drop him in the Marina Trench" Fury said
"What did you make the container out of?" Vivan asked
"A metal called adamantium" Fury said and Steve opened his mouth but I stamped my foot down on his and he quickly silenced, though I'm sure Fury knew Vivian had gotten her hands on the metal to make my vest and bullets,
"So what are we waiting for?" Stark asked, "Let's drop this bastard in the ocean and forget all about him"
Fury started giving commands and soon we were in the air. It took about an hour to get to the Marina Trench and we were all invited up on deck when we'd landed, Steve insisted on carrying me since I was still a little unsteady on my crutches and we all watched as a large metal container was hoisted into the air and dropped into the deepest part of the trench.
Unfortunately for me there happened to be splash back from the container hitting the water and soaking the blouse I'd bought the previous day to make up for the clothes I'd ripped fighting Apocalypse on the streats,
"DAMN IT THIS BLOUSE COST TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS!" I yelled
"What the hell did you spend that kind of money on a blouse for?" Vivian asked
"It's Vivenne Westwood!" I answered
"Oh well that justfies it" Vivian nodded her head while the boys just looked at me in confusion
"You guys have a lot to learn about women"
"And are you gonna stick around to teach us?" Steve asked
I looked over at Bruce, who had his arms around Vivian,
"Yeah I think I will"