OK when a mad scientist looks at you with a gleam in his eye and gives a maniacal laugh about removing any form of tracking or tracing devices or chips within your very fragile body, maybe he should have read the room and your very dangerous wall punching boyfriend first. I would have laughed at how fast Billy had his white coat wearing ass pinned to the first wall he'd punched if I wasn't forced to talk him down from using the asshole as a human cookie cutter to make a scientist shaped hole in the wall next to the Billy shaped fist hole.

"Billy, please," I pleaded, one hand on his hard as fuck bicep. "Don't, at least not until the good doctor helps get whatever Vought put in me out of me." A swear to fuck, that growl of his, slowly building as the now quivering scientist struggled and whimpered was going to be the death of me, or the major source of my utmost embarrassment. "Just think, once he gets the tracking shit out, we can have a tiny shred of privacy that will make the car look-" that's all it took, his clenched fists released the lab coat and the doctor crumpled to the floor in a pile of fear and sniveling.

Billy's lips were on mine before I could enjoy the sight, not that I cared to complain. His hands, so rough on the doctor not a moment before, were soft as they drew me to him, his fingers sliding down the curve of my cheek, cradling my neck and tilting my head back so he could deepen the kiss and divert himself from rendering the man incapable of further aid. A throat cleared somewhere beyond the feeling of our lips sliding together. A cough came from behind where he'd turned my body, pressing it into the same wall that he'd slammed the man's, but where he held mine tight and sensually, promising to show me just how much he adored every single inch of me. Our names, first uttered with mild humor, then growing irritation, came as each flick of our tongues stoked a fire that never seemed to dim, but I knew, even if we would rather cleave off a limb, we had to put a pin in the growing flames. For now, at least. A groan from me, a muttered curse from him, and a shared sigh.

"Finished, are you?" Mallory sounded bored or resigned. "Perhaps we could get back to the task at hand?"

And with that, I was back on the examination table, and we got back to work on figuring out how to undo what Homelander put in motion.

The chip was easy enough to find. For every techy doodad, there's a techy finder. And extracting the chip was even mostly painless. Mostly painless, because the poor lab rat charged with the duty was rendered scared shitless by Billy's hovering, glowering presence. The tiny piercing pain came from the pinch from his twitchy hand. And by some fucking luck or shred of self control I never knew I had deep inside, I managed to NOT show it gave me any discomfort whatsoever. Hopefully Chad, or Chris, or Cory takes that to heart.

"Where are you planning on taking that to?" I asked, as the chip was put in a tiny rubbery tube that was handed to one of the cleanup crew guys. A nod at Mallory and the guy and his partner were gone.

"Somewhere far away from here," she smirked. "Now, next up is-" her eyes met Billy's and the doctor that he'd nearly flattened before. She sighed. "Are you both ready to play nice?" I wanted to point out that I was the one that was going to actually be put through the fucking ringer and poked and prodded, but thought better of it.

"I'll play nice if Dr. Cuntsalot keeps the urge to go Marquis de Sade on Ronnie at zero." I second that motion. "If he don't? Then, let's just say, that wall is gonna look great with him as my newest art installation."

I swallowed hard, but not nearly as hard as the doctor in question did. "I apologize if it appeared that I was-" he looked a tad green. "I only want to make certain that Dr. Taylor is healthy and completely safe."

What I learned, during my three days with Mallory's scientists/doctors, was that I could always expect questions. Different questions, perhaps, but questions were a given. I had to let them know if I could sense disturbances in the way my temperature changed, since I had warnings during the steamings prior to the abortion. It became a bit of a game, how to curb the urge to steam without having Billy nude and writhing underneath me.

Shaking it off was getting easier, but the goal wasn't controlling the urge, it was removing the need to control the urge.

"It appears that this 'variation' as they put it," the lone female doctor offered, holding up a test tube with God knew what was in it and addressing it, rather than any of the actual humans in the room. "Is actually anti-Compound V." I was so confused by this point, since we'd dealt with the steaming, the chip, we'd found that the sperm and genetic leavings from Homelander junior hadn't created more problems than we'd expected, but that the variation or variations were the main issue. She realized she actually had an avid audience and took a deep breath. "Compound V, as they want everyone to believe and buy into, fixes all the issues with human frailty, correct?" I shrugged, as did Billy and Mallory as the woman's colleagues reluctantly agreed as well. "This-" she shook the vial gently and I realized that she'd somehow extracted it from my blood, at least in part. "This is completely different. This takes all those frailties, and amplifies them. The reason you hemorrhaged? This. If you hadn't been rushed in, if Mallory hadn't forced them to acknowledge that it was given to you, that SOMETHING had been given to you, then they would have let it go. You'd be dead now."

I stared at the vial. How much more was inside of me? Was it multiplying as we spoke? "How long?" What was I asking?

"I'm not sure," she answered, staring at the vial. "This took the entire time you were on the machine today to clean out." Eight hours of dialysis to clear that tiny vial from my bloodstream. "I can't be sure how it multiplies, not without testing, but we can keep you on the machine, like-"

"Ronnie can't go back there," Billy's hand took mine and his voice sounded fierce, but his hold was careful. "You can't," his eyes were on mine when I looked up. "I won't let you." I opened my mouth, but he shook his head. "Please, don't argue me on this."

"I concur, Dr. Taylor." Mallory took a seat on my other side. "Ronnie, they were willing to allow you to die to keep this quiet. Sooner or later they would have allowed it to happen. Vought has gone so far, too far."

And so, a new round of Dr. Veronica Taylor guinea pig began. This time at a truly undisclosed medical center.