Peachy Keen

Chapter 16

Tony was so excited he had to keep reminding himself that he didn't have Jarvis as a co-pilot on his
motorcycle. Even at that, he missed the turn-off for the Keener house and had to backtrack. He
parked the motorcycle next to Harley's truck, noticed that Holly's faded blue sedan was in its usual
place, and resisted the impulse to head straight to Quasimodo.

Holly was taking a casserole out of the oven when he entered. It smelled like one of his favorites,
canned chicken and stars soup over a bed of rice mixed with leftover cooked chicken from the
Sunday roast. She straightened up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "Well, don't you look fit to
burst! Harley said you had some good news?" She covered the casserole and set it down on a hot
pad in the middle of the table which had already been set for dinner.

"Yes! Where are the kids? I want to tell everyone at once."

"I'm not a kid," Harley said good naturally, entering the kitchen behind Tony, "but I guess I'll let the
old man call me that."

Charley was with him, and she hummed in agreement.

"Yeah, yeah, we're all semi-responsible adults here," Tony replied. "I trust you, all of you, to keep
this quiet. Right, don't tell anyone." He looked at Charley, and added, "Not even the cat." He took a
deep breath. He wasn't used to explaining what he was thinking. It was so much simpler just to DO
it. But the Keeners deserved to know what he was working on while he was living under their roof.
"I may, just may, have an idea for something to keep the Chitauri at bay. Vibranium is a unique
metallic element whose properties change when alloyed with other substances. Theoretically a
vibranium 'bronze' utilizing copper and tin with the vibranium as a trace element, similar to the use of
silver in common bronze, can form a defensive repulsive barrier, in much the same way similar poles
of a magnet repel each other, to any substance, once it's been encoded, via specific electrical
impulses while the alloy is being forged and is still in a liquid, flux state, and in much the same way
Smart Water is encoded in batches all the same, each batch of vibranium bronze could be further
coded to link together even when separated by great distances, so small, very small, amounts of the
vibranium bronze could be scattered over a large area, and would lie dormant until automatically
triggered by sensing a particular element at a distance, hopefully, in the upper stratosphere." Tony
paused. "Any questions?"

Charley walked past him, opened the refrigerator, took out a cupcake, and brought it to him. She put
the cupcake in his hand, and then patted him on the head.

Holly laughed. "I have no idea what you said, but I'm with Charley."

"Look, mom," Harley said, "I get it, I think. But will it work?"

"Maybe?" Tony put the cupcake down next to his plate. "I'd like to get started right now, to check."

Holly crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot on the kitchen tiles.

Tony sighed. "Right after dinner."