911 | james barnes

018

11:24am, September 30, 2013

Tromso, Norway

"Lady Jane! I'd like you to meet my newly acquired, small lady. Lady Violetta, this is Jane Foster. She's very smart, I'm sure you will burn houses down together." Thor announced proudly, his large arms gesturing between the two women while a smile decorated his normally stoic features.

"Burn houses down?" Jane repeated, her eyes wide as dinner plates as she stared at the God.

"He means 'get along like a house on fire'." Violetta translated, watching as Thor nodded quickly, the smile not dissipating.

"Oh, right. Wow, you must have spent a long time with him to figure that out. I'm Jane." She giggled, holding her hand out to the smaller girl.

"Definitely not. I speak fifty-seven languages and one of them just happens to be stupid. I'm Violetta Tchaikovskaya but you can just call me Violet." Violetta announced, grasping Jane's larger hand within her own, watching Thor's expression fall as he processed the insult. The girls could see the gears still turning in his head, linking arms as they began to walk away from the man, giggling as they did so.

"So, you really speak fifty-seven languages, huh?" Thor heard Jane mutter as he caught up to the two of them, his mind briefly torn between walking beside the woman he loved or protecting the smaller girl he cared about so much.

"Yeah, I started learning my first three when I was about four, so after that, it was pretty easy to pick the rest up." Violetta told Jane, her counterpart nodding along as she saw Thor appear beside the blonde.

"So, what brought on the visit? Not that I'm not awfully happy to see you and to meet you Violetta, but it seems like too long a trip to come to Norway just to introduce me." Jane asked Thor after they had settled in a cafe, an empty cup in front of Jane that she had confiscated from Thor in fears of him smashing yet another one. A few tables over, Violetta held a mug of hot chocolate in her small hands, cradling it close to her body as the outside temperatures had given her a chill. Her eyes followed different people as they scurried to and from work, each ducking into doors and through walkways as quick as they could to escape the quickly dropping temperatures.

"Well, Stark wanted you to check over Violetta. She survived large exposures of gamma radiation at a young age and considering the only other person to have survived that blast turns into a giant green man with anger issues, we'd like to have her checked." Thor stated matter-of-factly, looking over at the fifteen year old. Though he had only known her a few  months, he had developed a very deep level of care and love for the kid. He saw her as a niece, and with the recent issues he had been experiencing with his relationship with Jane, he believed Violetta would be the closest thing he'd ever get to a child of his own.

"You do know I'm not a doctor, right? I'm an astrophysicist, I deal with space things not... oh you think she's an alien?" Jane deduced, watching Thor's facial expressions change as she came closer to the subject.

"Not necessarily an alien. Stark ran some tests on her and his x-ray-z machine found that her bones are not, as one would say, normal. He could not find any research or medical conditions that caused it and believed maybe it was something you could read?" Thor explained, earning a small giggle from Jane at his mispronunciation of the 'x-ray' machine.

The words he had uttered slowly ticked through Jane's brain and she nodded before grabbing her bag.

"I'm telling everyone at the lab to go home so we won't have any prying eyes." Tapping her screen a few more times, she finally sent the message, rising from the table with Thor before the two of them went to the table Violetta was sitting at.

"Lady Violetta, are you ready? Jane is going to give you another check over, she's worked with gamma radiation before." Nodding, Violetta rose from the table, gasping sharply as she did so. Her two elders jumped toward her, Thor catching her in his arms just as she collapsed. His eyes darted around the cafe, then outside the window where a tall man dressed in a stark black suit stood across the road, staring at the teenager's unconscious body.

"We need to go. We need to go now. Do you have lockdown measures at your laboratory?" Thor rushed, pushing Jane out of the cafe while holding Violetta as close to his chest as he possibly could.

"Yeah, we have bulletproof windows and can lock down with four extra levels of indestructible windows for dangerous experiments. Why? Thor, what's going on?" Jane spoke quickly, unlocking her car as she climbed in hurriedly. Thor followed, settling in on the backseat with Violetta splayed out over the other seats, her small head resting on his lap as he held onto her hands for dear life.

"I do not know what is happening, but that man was looking directly at Lady Violet. He knew she would collapse, though I do not believe he knew we were there with her. When we get to your laboratory, begin the lockdown procedures. I will contact Stark and Banner and request backup and extraction. You're coming with us too, Jane. I do not wish for any harm that I may have caused to be brought upon you."

Jane nodded along furiously, her foot pressing down harder on the gas pedal as she sped toward her lab, a few miles from the city centre. The parking lot was deserted as she swung the car right up in front of the door, rushing out as Thor pulled Violetta's still unconscious body from the car. Jane pointed Thor to the room where they could reside peacefully in the middle of the building, with hundreds of doors, panels and force fields to protect them from any outside harm. Thor's shaking hand reached for the old-school phone Tony had given him, it's function only 4 working buttons. Each were speed dials for members of the Avengers team.

"Point Break, I see you remembered how to press a button." Tony quipped sarcastically as he answered the phone. As much as he joked, he knew a call from the God of Thunder was serious as he had not called upon the billionaire in the year and a half since the phone was issued.

"Violetta is unconscious. There was a strange man who looked like a witch across the road from the establishment we were in who was looking directly at her as she dropped. I am in lockdown at Jane's laboratory but we need to get out of here and figure out what has happened and who that man is." Thor stated, his sentences all containing a sharp edge to them. Tony believed Thor might have been blaming him for requesting they travel to Norway to conduct tests on the vulnerable teen.

"I-I'll assemble the team. Wait there for extraction and call me again if you see or hear anything from this little witch." Tony stuttered before regaining his composure and rushing through the Avengers tower to the hangar where a Quinjet would be.

"And please, for the love of God, protect the little flower." Tony spoke before hanging up. Thor sighed, staring at the pale girl. As he began to worry due to the almost translucence of Violetta's skin, a faint white glow began to emit from within her.

"Lady Violetta. Lady Violetta! This would be a very good time to wake up!" Thor shouted, beginning to shake the small girl vigorously. Her skin was burning hot and as Thor removed his hand, there were blisters forming on the skin of his palm.

"JANE!" Thor shouted, Violetta's glow beginning to grow even stronger. Jane ran into the small room her friends occupied upon hearing the urgency of Thor's shouts.

"What the hell?" Jane muttered, about to take a step forward when a blinding white light and a blast of energy filled the room, sending Thor and Jane crashing into the walls of the laboratory.

They accounted for an attack coming from outside of the premises.

What they did not prepare for was an attack coming from the inside.

a/n: hey everyone. i was going to try and avoid doing these for as long as possible since it disrupts the book but i think this is necessary. i'm just about to go into hospital and don't know when i'll be able to keep writing. i have one more chapter prewritten and the cover for act four ready, so i'll get someone to publish those for me to build the suspense of this chapter. i apologise for the disruption and hope i can get back to writing for you guys as soon as possible :) thank you for reading, it means a lot especially during this time, so please continue voting and commenting because it really does make my day to see the impact my writing has. all the love, eden <3