A/N: Hey guys! My exams are over, which means I can go back to keeping a more regular schedule! Yay! Anyway, enough of my rambling, enjoy this chapter! See you later!
- Harper E. Pierce
When Bucky and Raven returned to the tower, they decided it was a good idea to cool the rivalry between Lexi and Quinn. Neither of them were told what happened, as Raven said to them that the girls would explain the situation.
A few hours after shopping, the girls were sitting in the living room of the penthouse, when Tony walked up to them.
"Hart, Atkinson, we want to talk to you," Tony said, looking motioning over to someone who was absent from the conversation. Once he noticed, he rolled his eyes and looked over to the kitchen. "Spangles, you're supposed to be here too!"
"Wait... he has to be here too?!" Quinn asked anxiously. Lexi smirked in return.
"Yeah, of course. He's the leader of the team. I just buy, fund and support the Avengers." Tony grumped, still pissed off about that fact. Steve looked over to Tony and turned beet red.
"One moment please," Tony told them as he ran to get Steve, "the rest of you should go to the kitchen." The rest of the girls left the room, leaving Quinn and Lexi to sulk. Tony returned, laughing so hard he was crying. Steve's face turned even redder as he approached Quinn and Lexi, as did Quinn's. Quinn flushing at someone? Unheardof.
"First of all, Quinn, I can understand your pain, as sometimes I get in trouble for my big mouth too sometimes. Secondly, Lexi, your payback methods are hilarious," Tony told them, bursting out into laughter once again.
"It was NOT funny!" Quinn and Steve said simultaneously. They looked at each other and blushed.
"Quinn using a random person in the mall to get a little handsy with Lexi was also quite funny. But you BOTH are in deep shit for something I know you both did," Tony continued. "We told you when you first arrived NOT to use your powers without training,"
"Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?" Steve tried his hardest to be stern. Quinn couldn't help but blush, and Lexi smirked.
"It didn't work to pay him off! What else was I supposed to do?"
"I don't know, maybe NOT go through with plan?"
"Shut up, Hartless!"
"I'll shut up when I want to shut up, Asskinbitch!"
"SHUT UP, BOTH OF YOU!" Tony yelled overtop of their bickering. "We told you not to use your powers."
"Why am I getting in shit? I didn't even use mine!" Lexi whined.
"How did you know that Steve had to pee?"
"... Fine, you got me. But I slightly feel your emotions without use of my powers. All I have to do is amp it up to distinguish them and feel your sensations." She admitted brusquely.
"Can this feud just end now?!" Tony irked, "it's only going to get more annoying if you guys don't quit this now."
"Fine. Ended. Can I go now?" Quinn asked uncomfortably.
"Yeah sure." Tony sent them off. Lexi and Tony walked back into the kitchen, but Steve pulled Quinn aside.
"Hey... um- I'm sorry for... you know- uh, walking in on you." The blonde apologised awkwardly, barely looking her in the eyes.
"Yep, it's fine!" She replied quickly, eyes wide with awkwardness.
"So... we're cool?" He asked.
"Yep, totally!" She said again, trying to walk away from the conversation. Steve finally looked into her eyes, as she did to his. God, those eyes were so blue, like the ocean after a storm. So bright, so... innocent. She unintentionally bit her lip seductively at them, and looked down.
"Quinn?" He asked. "Are you okay? You're zoning out." She snapped out of her trance.
"Oh, uh-sorry. What was it that you were saying?" She scratched the back of her head, attempting to recover from her mistake.
"I was making sure that you knew that you're starting training tomorrow." He told her.
"Okay. Thanks for letting me know!" She said as she scurried back to the kitchen. What had just happened?
-
Later that day, Tris and Skylar had gotten bored. Lexi had locked herself up in her room, Quinn was busy talking to Tori about sneaking out of the tower for Coachella coming up that year, and Lorelei and Raven were having a "therapy" session. So the two sciency girls decided it'd be a good idea to explore the tower a little more.
It didn't take long before they found the lab, and surprisingly, Tony wasn't there, even though he had left out all of his computer work and tools. They looked around the lab in awe of all of the technology they were available to.
"It's heaven! Am I dead?" Skylar asked.
"Not dead. Just in heaven," Tris replied, "but it looks like Mr. Stark was working on something. Some new formula for his blasters on his suit. Looks like he wants to increase explosive damage," she pointed out, looking at his notes, and sighing a little at his stupidity. "Doesn't he know that halogens and alkalis mixed with water are highly reactive?! Magnesium isn't strong enough! God, people are idiots!" She scratched out his note, and wrote down to use alkalis instead. Then she looked around for examples of different alkalis.
"Tris, I don't think you should be doing this..." Skylar trailed off, "although the new design of this blaster suit in unbelievably breakable. The protective shell needs to be stronger, thicker." She was easily distracted by it.
"You're an engineer right?"
"Yeah,"
"Help me redesign this blaster, it's a poor excuse for weaponry. He said he was a genius. I sure as hell don't see that!"
"As much as I don't think we should be touching Mr. Stark's lab equipment, we're both trained professionals, and clearly he needs some serious help with building some of his machinery. So why not?"
"Yay! You start with taking apart this blaster, and I'll get the chemicals we'll need," Tris told her. Skylar nodded, and began to pull apart the blaster.
After a few hours, the blaster was almost finished. Skylar had to make quite a few adjustments to the arm, as nanotech was harder to work with. She screwed one of the final pieces, and ran towards the computer to finish programming the armour.
"Hey Tris, how's the caesium formula coming along?" Skylar asked her, not even looking up from their project.
"I'm just about done, could you pass me that glass carrier? I need something to contain these beads. Have you programmed the beads to activate with voice command yet? I want them to explode on the keyword 'complicated', and to release and attach to an object on the command, 'beads.' We also need to add these codes to FRIDAY's database,"
"On it." Skylar said as she quickly typed up the last little bit of the codes. "And... done. The codes should have been sent to FRIDAY's database and the arm is now programmed."
"Now, we should just add the beads to the arm," Tris walked carefully over to where Skylar was working to hand the beads in the glass tube, "be very careful, if you drop any of these beads, the whole floor could explode." Skylar nodded, opening the container for the beads, and placing them inside the blaster. Then, Skylar screwed the container shut.
"And finished! Now for our twelfth test. Tris, can you turn your phone so we can film this?" Skylar asked.
"Of cour-"
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Tony appeared around the corner, pissed off.
"Fixing your poor excuse for technological weaponry, why?" Tris replied pridefully.
"You're talking to one of richest and smartest technological geniuses in the world about his 'poor excuse for technological weaponry?' Yeah, okay, show me your so-called better than Stark Industries technology, trainee." Tony shot back egotistically.
"This is your blaster for your suit that you've been working on, right?" Skylar asked.
"Yes, I have wanted it's blasts to be more powerful."
"Yeah well, it's shit," Tris told him directly.
"Okay then tell me, oh wise ones, why."
"The armour around it, first of all, is not that strong. You either need a better type of metal, or more iron. Titanium would've been more useful, but I had to work with what I had." Skylar told him informatively.
"But that wasn't all," Tris folded her arms, "if you want a stronger explosion coming out of your blasters, magnesium is NOT the element to use. You need alkali metals,"
"I can't believe how poor your math skills are," Tony rolled his eyes, laughing a little a Beatrice and Skylar.
"Actually, I can't believe how bad YOUR math is. You want your blast to make an impact of about two hundred newtons, but Magnesium is only going to get you to about seventy-three," Tris replied smartly, "now let's do our twelfth test," Skylar and Tris ran over to a tarp with a target on it that was being used for testing. Skylar put the hand blaster on.
"DON'T YOU-"
"Beads!" Skylar shouted, the beads flew out and attached them to their target.
"What are you-"
"Complicated!" She shouted, and the target exploded. Skylar, Tony and Beatrice were all flung five feet away from where they were standing, which was far away enough already from the blast. "Tris, what's the reading on the newtons?"
"... Two-hundred and four. Should we make it exact?" Tris asked her fellow scientist friend.
"Nah, a little over what we expected is okay," Skylar shrugged it off.
"How did you know to do that?" Tony asked with inquiry. "I've got Ph.Ds in physics, mechanical engineering and in electrical engineering, and you managed to make my weapons even more powerful than they already are. I'm a genius, a billionaire for my technology, and you just made one of my most valued pieces of tech look like it was a piece-of-shit car!" He exclaimed.
"Didn't you read our files?" Skylar giggled. Tris began to laugh as well. Skylar took off her gloves and goggles and washed her hands.
"No," Tony replied curiously, "what were your previous jobs again?"
"Actually read our files to find out, and don't just rely on Mr. Rogers tell you shit," Tris told him, doing the same as Skylar, and stepping into the elevator with her science buddy in a cocky manner. The doors shut, and the girls burst out into laughter about the look on Tony's face.
-
Raven finally remembered one thing about her old life that she decided she'd never tell anyone in the Avengers about; her boyfriend of three years, Damon Edwards. He was tall, with short, silky, dark brown hair and brown eyes, he had a little bit of scruff on his face, and he was twenty-six years old. And one thing was for sure; she had been gone for several weeks, so he was definitely worried. She needed to contact him, he probably sent the police after her. But she didn't remember his phone number. She knew she had memorized it, but couldn't remember it at the point when she needed it most.
She knew what she needed to do. She needed her phone back, and it was guaranteed that either Steve and Tony had it, or it was still with SHIELD.
But how was she going to be secretive with him about being kidnapped? She couldn't just say that she wanted be away from him, that would clearly be a lie. She decided that she was going to figure out something to tell him before she called him. Getting her story straight was going to be hard. Especially when she couldn't tell him about HYDRA, SHIELD, or the Avengers, let alone about her powers and the kidnaping. The one thing she knew is that she was going to have to figure out fast.