Chapter 12:
Vivian returned to the Helicarrier with her new ingredients for disaster. Stark and Banner were still there when she returned,
"Have fun with the wizard?"
The small British girl looked at him like he was mental "Wizard? Oh right Merlin" Vivian shook off Tony's question with a question of her own "Is there a glove box on this ship?"
"Only in a car" Stark retorted concentrating on his work whilst Vivian gathered thing she needed from the pile she'd left on a chair,
"In the next room" Banner corrected, knowing what kind of glove box she meant, "But what would you need that for?"
Vivian grabbed a pair of safety goggles and rushed across to the other room "explosive stuff"
D-38 or Depleted uranium as it's more commonly known is often used for armour-piercing projectiles and in the hands of a explosive nut is going to be downsized and used for rounds in a hand gun. Who says armour piercing round have to be just for larger projectiles? Merlin couldn't acquire a lot of the substance so Vivian had enough to make six bullets for Alice's .44 magnum.
Vivian sealed the box and removed it from the chamber, venturing out into the main lab area to find it empty, she almost died when she saw the time four in the morning.
"It took me that long?" she asked herself stretching her back, it cracked loudly "that's what I get for being hunched over for so long" she thought to herself why sleep now no point really. So she carried on with the next stage of her work, playing with the new block of metal she'd been given.
She was quite surprised that the helicarrier had facilities that would allow her to melt metal. This however was not her strong suit and found herself with burn marks up both arms, she was lucky that one of the engineers had appeared before she'd set herself on fire with the furnace. She told him what she needed and he assisted eagerly. For an expert it didn't take him long to fashion the metal into the shape she needed, thanking him as she returned to the lab. Ignoring the desk she set up camp on the floor cutting lengths of Kevlar to make a shirt for the metal chest plate to fit in. As she was adding the finishing touches, Vivian felt her eyes closing and was quickly awoken with a pair of scissors in her hand
"Ah, shit, erm, plasters!" she ran around the lab till she found a box of plasters in a draw. "Coffee then finish." Vivian yawned and ventured forth to the canteen, sitting down at a table with coffee and fell asleep shortly after.
When Vivian didn't come home I made a point of getting up early and heading to the base to find her,
"You're in early" Thor said
"Looking for Vivian. She didn't come home last night"
"I think the Ferret is in the lab I heard a lot of cursing there early this morning"
"You shouldn't call her that. She has a hard enough time being short" I said
"I mean no disrespect"
"Just try calling her Vivian" I smiled and headed off running into Dr Banner, "Ah good just the fella I wanted to see"
"Forgive me if that phrase sends a chill down my spine" Dr Banner joked,
"Oh don't be such a worry wart I'm not gonna hurt ya" I laughed, "I'm looking for my pet arsonist"
"Well she was working on something last night and if she didn't go home then she's probably still in the lab. I'm headed there now actually"
"Great I'll tag along then. She's not giving you guys any grief is she? She gets pretty into whatever it is she's doing and sometimes she forgets about the outside world. I know once she was so absorbed in something that she forgot to sleep for a week. She didn't understand how she was so weak"
Banner laughed and I could see why Vivian liked him, he had an honest face and kind eyes, "Kind of like Steve but I won't give him a chance to prove himself" I thought a little bitterly. All thoughts of Steve were however pushed to the back of my mind when I caught sight of Vivian.
Her arms bore scorch marks and she was covered in plasters and under her eyes were a deep dark purple, "Vivian! What the hell!" I said running over to her
"Oh Alice hi, is it past noon already?"
"No it's eight am I got up early when you didn't come home last night" I said, "Good thing too, what have you done to yourself?"
"Oh this? I'll be fine, say do you have your gun on you?"
"Yeah of course" I handed her my gun and she emptied out the rounds already in the chamber and loaded some new ones in,
"I was working on these last night. You're gonna love them. They're amour piercing!" Vivian said happily, "Come on I want to see you test them out!"
"Don't we need armour to pierce first?"
"Yeah I've got some Kevlar here!" Vivian said setting up a piece of Kevlar on the wall and handing me back my gun, "Come on let's see what the bullets can do!"
So I took aim at the piece of Kevlar on the wall and fired and much to my surprise the bullet went right through and lodged itself in the wall, "I knew it would work!" Vivian cheered, "And that isn't all I was working on! I made you something else!" she said grinning so that her canine teeth looked elongated and sharper than usual, "Just wait till you see!"
"I really don't like the sound of this" Banner said
"Me either Doc. Me either"
"Stay still" Vivian ordered, stabbing Alice in the side as she fidgeted on the spot,
"Why do you need to sew while I'm wearing it?" Vivian was trying to adjust the vest since it was a little loose on Alice,
"Because it's easier that way and look I'm done now" cutting the stray thread as she stepped back to admire her work "is it heavy?"
Alice stretched and twisted with the Kevlar vest on "oddly no it's quite light and doesn't chaff"
Vivian nodded and walked back over to the desk "Good good, O I forgot to mention that new magazine I gave you don't use them unless you're going against Famine the black spidery thing"
The southern girl gave her a questionable look
"Why?"
"Ehe...armour piercing remember? Not good if you're against normal people," the arsonist chuckled checking the vest over again when Steve joined them in the lab "Morning Cap"
"Morning." he looked at Alice who was stood with her hands in her pockets as Vivian tugged at some of the seams "Nice vest"
"It's not up to Alice fashion standards but it's durable and will probably save her life" Vivian boasted proudly rising to her full height
"What do you mean 'probably'?" Alice snapped,
"We have to scientifically test it first" Vivian brimmed brightly, placing a pistol point black on the vest and pulled back the trigger. It echoed loudly in the room and the force sent Alice off her feet.
Steve rushed over to Alice who sat up rather dazed before she started laughing,
"You crazy bitch!" she yelled, "If I wanted to be shot at I'd have stayed in the south and married me a redneck boy who makes shine in his tub!"
Vivian chuckled lightly
"I should shoot you more. You're hilarious when you get all southern"
Protective Steve however did not find this situation a laughing matter
"What if that vest didn't work?" he shouted,
"Oh I've never seen you angry this is a change" Vivian mused placing the gun on the desk, "And I knew it was going to work. If it had been just Kevlar I would have shot her from a distance, point blank would have been silly,"
"You've certainly been busy it seems" Banner added, admiring the fact that whatever the vest had in it at protected Alice at point blank range no blood at all.
"So it's not just Kevlar?" Alice asked
Vivian grinned smugly
"Of course I'd rather not have you dying in battle against these horsemen so I made it super special for you. There is a sheet of metal in that vest, very hard to get hold of and very hard to break ... adamanitum"
Steve thought deeply for a moment
"My shield is made from that"
"And I know how sturdy that relic is, so I have no worries about Ali dying. My mind will be at ease." Vivian yawned rubbing her eyes "I'm going to take a nap" grabbing a long white lab coat from the back of a chair and crawled under the desk "g'night" she pulled the lab coat over her and fell asleep instantly
"She's really going to sleep under there?"
"She sleeps in odd places, time to time" Alice laughed, remembering the time she'd come back from 'work' to find Vivian sleeping in the gap between the wall and the sofa instead of actually on the sofa.
"That's ... not how you play pacman" Vivian mumbled in her sleep curling up into a ball.
Stark finally decided to join the team in the lab and was instantly full of questions
"Okay first, why is there a bullet in wall? Why are you wearing Kevlar over your clothes and why is the arsonist under the desk?" he asked pointing at each respective person
"New bullets. New bullet proof vest with added Adamanitum Viv made for me and she sleeps in odd places." Alice answered quickly, removing her new vest and holding it under her arm. "Well we should leave the brainy bunch be, let's go Steve"
Stark turned to the quiet doctor as soon as Alice and Steve left,
"She said Adamanitum didn't she?"
Banner nodded
"She did, why?"
"Where the hell did she get that from?"
"I'd assume the wizard" Banner added half joking
"So where do you think she got her hands on Adamanitum?" Steve asked
"I have no idea. She has 'sources' in just about every city and they usually all have code names. There was this one guy in Reno who went by the name 'Marie Antoinette' turned out to be some six foot four fat Mexican dude called 'Bubba' so that came as a bit of a shock" I explained
"You know I thought you were joking before about prison" Steve said, "But the more I talk to you the more I see you really weren't joking"
"Three hundred thousand dollars from Stark and all I had to do was stand beside him like a human trophy and giggle a bit" I said, "Easiest money we ever made" I laughed,
"What were you even doing in Vegas?"
"Vivian counts cards and where better than Vegas" I said
"Did you find the ferret then?" Thor asked as we entered the canteen, I was in desperate need of coffee. Mornings were evil,
"It's Vivian and yes we did. She made me new bullets" I said happily pouring some coffee into a mug, "Ugh mornings are evil" I groaned taking a sip from the hot liquid and scalding myself a little on the tongue, "Great now things are gonna taste funny all day" I said putting down my new vest on the table and taking a seat next to Steve,
"What is this?" Thor asked picking up my vest to examine it,
"Kevlar and Adamanitum vest. It's to stop me dying when I get shot at" I said examining the scar on my arm where I'd been shot at by SHIELD agents in Vegas, "I'm a normal squishy human girl so I don't deflect bullets like y'all do" I said poking my stomach to prove that I was indeed, squishy,
"I seem to recall only one 'squishy' part" Thor said making me almost choke on my coffee
"This is so not the time to talk about my squishy bits" I said while Steve narrowed his eyes a little at Thor,
"My apologies" Thor said, "I wish you all the luck in the world my friend" Thor stood up and clapped Steve on the shoulder and left the canteen
"What was that about not being clapped on the shoulder?" Steve asked
"Don't get all high and mighty. I said I'm not the type of girl where Daddy claps you on the shoulder. I said I'm the type of girl your friends congratulate you on and correct me if I'm wrong but the 'puny god' isn't your Daddy"
"No he's not"
"I rest my case" I said sipping my coffee and absentmindedly playing with Steve's dog tags around my neck,
"Hey you're wearing them" Steve said leaning in close and lifting the tags with his hand,
"Well yeah you gave them to me and said 'Here you can wear these' unless you want them back cause then I'm afraid that isn't happening. I like shiny things and this is the first piece of jewellery a guy has given me since I was fifteen"
"I thought you didn't have a boyfriend since you were sixteen?" Steve asked
"Yeah but he didn't give me anything. He was going to give me his great grandmother's broach that survived the civil war when we were married and needless to say that didn't happen"
"What did happen if you don't mind me asking" Steve asked sliding his chair a little closer to mine and I had to stop myself from ripping his shirt off just to get a look at the muscles I knew were under there,
"Well he was old school. Old family. Old money. His mamma and mine were debs together and they thought it would be a perfect match. He was fine for a while but the more I got to know him the more of a bastard I found him to be. One evening he asked to see me and I showed up in a pair of boots, old blue jeans a plaid shirt and my daddy's hunting jacket since it was cold – well cold for the south – and he hit the roof! How dare I show up in such a state! Didn't I care who saw me? Did I want to disgrace him? I said I was sorry that when he called I thought he just wanted to hang out maybe go for a walk or something I didn't know he expected me to show up in a Chanel dress decked out in my Grandmamma's pearls. And he hit me" Steve's whole body tensed, "He immediately apologised but I wasn't having it
"What did you do?"
"I broke his nose and retracted a testicle" I said proudly,
"How did you do that?" Steve asked flinching visibly,
"Head butted him in this part of his nose" I said touching the bridge of Steve's nose, "there isn't actually a bone there contrary to popular belief. It's all cartilage so with enough force I was able to shatter it. Cartilage actually makes a great sound when you shatter it. It's my second favourite noise" I said
"Second favourite" Steve was obviously confused,
"Well you're still a virgin so you wouldn't know about the other noise" I laughed, "Well I think I'm gonna go clothes shopping. I don't have anything for these harsh New York autumns" I said rinsing my mug out and heading out of the base leaving Steve bewildered sitting in the canteen on his own