Chapter Nineteen:
Even underwater red hulk refused to let go of the chair which stopped her from accessing the buckles of the chair, to make matters worse the weight of red hulk and the plane made them descend faster and Vivian was starting to panic. The horseman squeezed her and the chair tightly; she couldn't hold it anymore air escaped her mouth allowing the water to rush in.
Vivian found herself sat on a stool in a small cosy bar a dainty woman sat at the piano on the stage. The woman smiled at her as she played a song Vivian knew well 'someday my prince will come' by Bill Evans. She rested her head on the worn mahogany bar and her eyes slowly started to close. The music seemed so distant a warm hand stroked her hair; the woman was leaning on the counter too and smiled warmly
"You're still much too young, my little angel"
"Mum, I missed you"
"Someone has to make sure your father doesn't do something stupid"
"I inherited that from him" the music faded till it was nothing more than a distant memory.
The bright white ceiling stared down at her, half of Vivian had really wanted to stay in that bar with her mother, tears flowed down her face moving a hand to wipe them away, alerted someone that she was awake,
"Vivian, thank god" Bruce squeezed her hand tightly
"..." she tried to speak but her voice was sore after some coughs she managed to muster the words "not words I expected from a man of science" she joked.
"I need to call Alice she was worried sick"
Vivian slowly and painfully propped herself up with the pillows, her lungs felt sore like someone had attacked them with sandpaper. Bruce sat back down beside her; he looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.
"What happened to war?" she asked,
"Currently sedated in that glass cage, he has assumed his original form"
Vivian nodded as he spoke
"How did I get here?" she finally decided to ask before Bruce could answer Alice burst through the door and practically jumped on her issuing more pain to her chest
"You're alive! Don't go dying on me yet"
"I'm too young to die" she laughed her throat still very horse which made Alice chuckle. Vivian still felt forlorn, not walking up to her friends and accepting death would have let her stay where she had felt safest, in the house she grew up in with her mother. No pain and certainly no crazy aliens trying to take her face off.
Vivian was allowed to leave the med bay when both Banner and the resident Doc said she was ok. She was under orders, once again, to go home and stay there until Banner said she was allowed to go back to work again,
"I don't like this" Vivian sulked, "I don't even have anything to do!" Maria Hill had come around earlier that day and taken all Vivian's explosives plus anything that Fury thought could be used to make said explosives,
"Yes well the last time you were put on bed rest you decided to make bullets with Lycodium powder" Banner said
"Which proved ultimately useful" Vivian countered
"What's lycodium powder?" Steve asked
"It's what makes my flash bang bullets go flash and then bang" I explained touching the singed ends of my hair self consciously I'd been keeping it up in a ponytail since the Cajun man now known as Remy had burnt it with his flaming cards.
When he'd come around after being un brainwashed he apologised profusely and was extremely nice to the point where Steve took it upon himself to step in and make it very well known that he and I were in fact dating,
"Basically yeah" Vivian said, "I'm craving Chinese food. Do we have take out menus anywhere?"
"We should" I rose from the couch and started checking cupboards, "Looks like no I'll just go get some. You stay here and Doc you stay with her. Steve you're coming with me" I put my .44 in my pocket and headed out the door with Steve,
"How come you don't have a takeout menu?" Steve asked, "I mean they keep putting them on the door my apartment"
"I have loads" I responded, "Thai food, Chinese Food, Mexican, Chicken. Those two just need to be alone for a while" Steve laughed and took my hand in his something I wasn't exactly used to,
"You talk tough but you're really a big romantic at heart" he said
"You'd think so but no" I laughed, "I mean I went and bought that dress just to embarrass the life out of you" we headed down the alley I'd taken as a shortcut the last time I went to get Chinese and the same two tweakers were standing around and as soon as they saw me they ran so fast I almost expected there to be little dust outlines,
"Even if that's true you still went and found the dress. And you wear my dog tags and you dumped Thor in front of everyone"
"That proves nothing"
"It does. Why are you so afraid to be intimate with someone? I thought we had this figured out"
"Well apparently not. Look I'm really messed up ok? My mother used me as a social tool for her own betterment. My father the only man I ever could have loved if the feeling actually occurred in the black hole in my chest that some call my heart treated me like a son and what was I supposed to do say 'No dad girls aren't supposed to shoot or fish or hunt' because those skills are invaluable to me now. All I wanted was to be able to live my life the way I wanted to and I didn't get that so I learned that life is tough and you don't always get what you want and that love is just something you tell children a fairy tale. Soul Mates and One True Love it's all bullshit" I said taking my hand out of Steve's
"I have to believe that it's not" Steve said, "It's an old fashioned notion sure but I'm an old fashioned guy"
"You know what maybe this was a bad idea" I said taking Steve's dog tags from around my neck,
"No! You can't give up just because you're scared!" Steve yelled
"I might be scared but it's gotten me this far and it's kept me safe" I yelled back
"Staying alive isn't living" Steve said, "You've never lived a day in your life have you?"
"I've been safe" I said, "I've never been hurt"
"Maybe you need to be. You need to have your heart broken at least once"
"This is about her isn't it? Agent Peggy Carter am I right?"
"How do you know about Peggy?"
"I told you didn't I? I took a look at your record and more. Howard Stark recorded on his file that you and she were a thing"
"I loved her yes. But she lived her life, she got married and had children and grandchildren and she made great memories" Steve said, "What kind of memories have you? A string of random encounters with men that never last"
"What the hell does it matter to you?" I screamed
"It matters because I care about you" he said
"But why? I mean you said it I'm a mess why the hell would you care about me? You deserve a nice normal well adjusted girl not me and my truck load of emotional baggage"
"It's because you're a mess that I care about you. If you were a 'nice normal, well adjusted girl' then you wouldn't be here and I would never have met you" Steve said taking my hand in his again,
"So Chinese food" I said changing the subject completely but tightening the grip on Steve's hand, "Anything in particular you want?" Steve smiled and held me closer to him as we walked out of the alley and into the late evening sun
Several minutes passed in awkward silence in the apartment, "Coffee?" she asked breaking the awful silence.
"If you're having one"
Vivian ventured into the kitchen, flicking the kettle on, opening the draw to get a spoon she found several takeout menus stuffed in there too 'I'll kill her one of these days' she grabbed two cups and the milk out of the tiny fridge,
"How do you have your coffee?" she hollered,
"You don't need to shout I'm right here" Bruce had crept up behind her making Vivian almost drop the cups,
"Don't do that" she frowned, placing the cups on the counter "Coffee how do have it?" she repeated taking a side step away from him,
"Black no sugar" he replied, noticing Vivian's nervousness around him "are you afraid of me?"
Vivian turned to him with a confused yet angry look on her face "Afraid of you? Don't be soft" she handed him his coffee "do you expect me to scared because everyone else seems to be?" she asked with a raised brow,
"I just assumed-"
"Never assume," she advised sipping her own hot beverage and slipped past him "I'm only scared of one person and that's Angry Alice" she stated taking root on the sofa again, her back against the arm instead of the actual back of the sofa,
"Angry Alice?" Bruce joined her in the living area, sitting on the other end of the sofa,
"You've probably seen her mad not angry. I made her angry once when I switched her moisturiser with cheap fake tan. So she went orange and it was streaky. Ah I vowed never again to make her angry, she almost killed me which wouldn't be a first" Vivian laughed, placing her cup on the coffee table.
"The first time being when she met you"
Vivian nodded "That's right. She was the hitman and I was the target. An expensive target or so she told me"
Bruce seemed bewildered by Alice and Vivian's odd relationship, "why were you a target?"
"I'd finally pissed the wrong person off. The leader of a biker gang I used to run with, I swindled him out of a lot of money and took off and Alice was hired to kill me and retrieve the cash. And that is how our beautiful friendship came to be"
The doctor placed his empty cup on the coffee table, leaning back to look at Vivian "I do have a proposition, if you don't find it intrusive" Vivian stretched out her legs which had started to cramp her feet didn't reach Bruce since it was a rather large sofa "You told Loki you didn't know where your mother was, I was thinking we could probably track her down after this is over"
Vivian probably had the most ridiculous grin on her face "I appreciate the sentiment but I did tell Loki a slight lie. I sort of kind of know where she is." her smile did diminish on that note "I knew what prison she was in and she died shortly after being admitted there. She committed suicide. After that I don't know where she was buried" Vivian closed her eyes as she leant against the back of the sofa but quickly reopened them when she felt herself being moved, into the arms of Doctor Banner. Neither of them said anything for the first few seconds, she sat accepting the hug but moved into a more comfortable position straddling him, her hands on his chest,
"I'm sorry. I never thanked you for saving my life" she mumbled "Natasha told me"
"I certainly wasn't going to let you drown" she raised her head to look at him; Bruce always looked at her full of concern, which was rare. He didn't treat her like some crazy arsonist. Even though she really was most of the time. The doctor leant forward and kissed her tenderly on the forehead, even that simple act made her heart race.
"T-that's not fair" she pouted, responding with a more intimate kiss. Banner tightened his arms around her waist as if she would fly away if he didn't keep hold of her,
"That was unexpected" Vivian reburied her head into his chest listening to beat of his heart "I'm no good with people" she huffed,
"I know Alice told me" he whispered, breathing down her neck making her shiver "she also told me you collected articles on my work"
Vivian pushed back suddenly mortified "O Christ did she?" Bruce nodded "What else did she tell you?" she asked suspiciously,
"That I was your idol"
"O dear god, wait till I get my hands on her"
"Worry about that later" he breathed down her neck again pulling her back in for another deep kiss.
When Steve and I got back with the food Vivian and Bruce were sitting on the couch cuddling,
"I return with food" I announced
"That you really could have ordered" Vivian said poking her head up over the back of the couch
"Yes I could have but aren't you glad I didn't" I said opening the various boxes we'd been given plus the six pack I'd gotten on my way back
"Yeah I guess I am" Vivian said sitting back down with Bruce's arms around her, "Although you and I need to have a word about what you tell people" she scowled at me
"If it makes you feel better you can anyone anything about me you like" I said digging into a box of noodles
"Well I did tell Bruce about the time I swapped out your moisturiser for that cheap fake tan"
"It didn't come off for three days. So I had this orange streaky face for three days and I couldn't do anything about it"
The four of us sat in silence for a while and it gave me time to think about how strange our situation was. Vivian and I always maintained a distance with the opposite sex, if and when we did have dealings with them it was for business only and should that business leak into pleasure then it was wham, bam, thank you ma'am but here we were cuddled up to respective other halves drinking beer and eating Chinese food,
"What are you thinking about?" Steve asked
"How bizarre this all is to me"
"Me too" Vivian said
"How is it bizarre?" Bruce asked and I explained to him, "Well you can't be alone forever" he said,
"Says you" Vivian laughed
"I isolated myself for a reason" Bruce said, "I didn't want to hurt anyone"
"And we didn't want to get hurt" I said simply taking a long drink out of my beer
"You can't live your life without experiencing those kinds of things" Bruce said
"It's ok Doc. We've already had this discussion twice" I said tapping Steve on the chest, "We've pretty much got it covered"
The four of us had a quiet evening that night. We ate Chinese food, drank beer, found out that Steve can't get drunk so made him play as many drinking games as Vivian and I could think of, Bruce said he wouldn't stay the night and Vivian seemed fine with that so they had a cute kiss goodbye at the door which ended in her scowling at me when I 'awed' too loudly. Finally after making Steve play some more drinking games she headed to bed and warned me not to be too loud when I 'traumatised' Steve,
"I should cleanup" I said stretching my arms above my head,
"I'll help" Steve said gathering up boxes into a bin bag while I gathered up bottles to put in the recycling bin,
"I'm kind of tired" I said rubbing my stomach, "I think all that food made me sleepy"
"I'll go home then" Steve said,
"Nah you can stay just don't get too cuddly" I warned,
"I'll try" Steve laughed and for the first time in my life I went to sleep that night while someone spooned me.
Of course that kind of peace can only last for so long and when it breaks it brings hell with it.