Carmen Christmas

By: FunahoMisaki

(A/N: I own nothing and what would happen if Zack invited Carmen and whichever of her henchmen she wanted to bring over to his and Ivy's place for Christmas? Well…there's only a few other ACME agents and it's no trap but…well things aren't always what they seem. AU OOC)

"Oh hey you all made it! Welcome to our Wisconsin house." Zack said answering the door with a grin as he looked at the four women standing outside. Carmen was looking surprised, Dara was shocked, Sara just seemed a bit surprised, and Hannah? She was just cold. She didn't even care about the four story mansion in front of her, she was just shivering heavily since she was wearing her Hawaii outfit. They were all carrying bags and suitcases as well.

"Come on in. Poor Hannah looks like she's going to freeze." Zack said opening the door wider and inviting them in as he grabbed some of the suitcases. The four were supposed to stay a week or so after all.

"Hey sis!" Zack called, yelling through the house as the four women walked into the pleasantly warm house, poor Hannah was more used to tropical weather though and so she was still shivering.

"DON'T CALL ME SIS!" The shout came back twice as loud as usual as a spatula came flying out of a nearby door and smacked Zack in the head.

"Ow! For fucks sake Ives the spatula?" Zack shouted holding his head where the spatula had struck with such startling accuracy, although the four VILE women were more shocked at the curse that slipped from the boys lips.

"Shit! I need that back!" Ivy called causing a snickering Tatyanna to walk into the room and grab the offending object.

"Oh hey Carmen, Professor, Dara, Hannah. Great to see you made it." Tatyanna said smiling at the four before moving back to the doorway that Ivy's voice and the spatula had come from.

"They're here already? Fuck Zack why didn't you tell me?" Ivy called earning a scowl from her brother.

"Because you threw a spatula at me you psycho bitch!" Zack shouted back as Ivy appeared at the doorway, causing Carmen and Dara's jaws to drop slightly at the sight of the girl. She was wearing a Christmas sweater with the Grinch on it, a pair of black leather pants, and she had a pair of fuzzy Pikachu socks on her feet. The thing that stunned the VILE women most was the fact that she was wearing a pair of simple but stylish glasses and the sweater had the words 'Merry Fucking Christmas Whovile' stitched on it.

"Welcome to our home bladda bladda all that good shit. Main rules are that you have fun, don't go in Zack's room or the kitchen, and all fights are merely playful sparring. Help yourself to anything else though. Zack you mind giving them a tour and getting Hannah to the winter clothes? She looks like she's about to freeze her tits off." Ivy said looking at the heaviest and yet gentlest of the four VILE women who was still shivering.

"You're a lot cruder than I remember." Sara said staring at the red head who shrugged her shoulders.

"When on the job I act professional, but unless there's an emergency case every ACME agent especially the Junior ones, are off duty for the next two weeks. I can be as unprofessional and crude in my own fucking house as I want to be. Excuse me." Ivy said scowling as she turned back around and disappeared through the doorway.

"Tatyanna if you don't get the fuck out of my kitchen and stop trying to 'taste test' everything I'm going to bend your tight Russian ass over that counter and turn you into my bitch!" Ivy could be heard yelling, causing Zack and Dara to crack up as the other three gaped in disbelief.

"So testy!" Tatyanna laughed as she ran from the kitchen and skidded to a stop before she could run into Hannah who was still shivering and yet blushing brightly at the words out of Ivy's mouth.

"You are really trying Ivy's patience about her kitchen Tatyanna." Aileen said from where she was snickering at a nearby doorway with Jasmine not far behind.

"It's fun, she's so protective of it." The blond Russian said grinning as the three female detectives looked at the VILE women.

"Don't just stand there come on further in. There's a fire in the living room that Jasmine and I have camped out in front of. I had no idea that it was so cold here when I accepted the invite." Aileen said moving and letting them see the fire in the chimney through the doorway.

"You two never saw snow until you got here two days ago." Zack said dryly before looking back at the women.

"Come on. We already have rooms set up for you four and we got a whole wardrobe of spare winter cloths you all can have. I'll show you to your rooms so you can put your stuff down and each room has a winter wardrobe so you can get some warmer cloths." Zack said smiling at the women as he walked over to the stairway near the back of the large house.

"Here. If you are as new to snow as Aileen then you might want this until you get to the cloths." Tatyanna said taking a fluffy blanket from off of a chair nearby and handing it to Hannah.

"Bless you." Hannah said gratefully as she wrapped herself in the blanket.

"Do you three need a blanket as well? I doubt those cloths are very warm." Jasmine asked as she eyed the other three women, especially Dara who was just wearing her usual leotard.

"Carmen and myself have insular warming devices built into our cloths to keep us at a comfortable temperature." Sara said smugly and earning a glare from Hannah.

"And you didn't think to share some with me?" Hannah asked glaring at the scientist who shrugged.

"I thought she had and that you were just unused to the climate." Carmen said frowning at Sara as well.

"Her constant superstitions annoyed me." Sara said earning a scowls from Hannah.

"Smug bitch." Hannah muttered under her breath, earning a snort from Dara.

"The cold means nothing if you're disciplined enough." Dara said crossing her bare arms unbothered and earning a snort from Carmen.

"Huh you're just like Ivy then. Cold doesn't bother her either." Aileen said earning a surprised look from Dara.

"Then why was she wearing a sweater?" Sara challenged making Ivy appear in the kitchen doorway again with a small shrug.

"Zack made it for me." Ivy said making the women look at Zack surprised and he just blushes embarrassed.

"Now why are you four still standing in the opening? Zack show them around already! You can go almost anywhere you want by the way. But you need permission from the room's occupants before you enter another persons bedroom, Zack's room is permanently off limits, and if you step a foot in my kitchen I'm going to shank all four of your asses." Ivy said making the four women look surprised and Carmen and Dara looked amused at the threat.

"He's fourteen. Why would we want to go in his room?" Sara asked earning narrowed eyes from the older sister who uncrossed her arms and took a step forward.

"He uses his bedroom as his main lab for his inventions. He keeps most of the less violate ones there so he can tinker with them if he's stuck in bed, I catch any of you in his room and your asses are mine." Ivy growled out darkly and making the women back up a few steps when they noticed the knives in her hand. Even Carmen wouldn't try to sneak into Zack's room and risk Ivy's wrath at that moment.

"Come on. I'll show you the house before Ivy starts getting into her really protective mood." Zack said quickly grabbing Hannah and Carmen's hands and tugging them to the stairway.

"She can get worse?" Sara asked with a slight wince, remembering how easily the slim looking red head was able to throw machines and grown men as if they were toys.

"Oh you've seen nothing yet. You should have heard the threats she was muttering when Lee cut that cord and nearly got us hurt. She was pissed at him hurting me and if he didn't have Carmen as a hostage when we caught him at that bank she would have broken his face and most of the bones in his body before snapping his neck. Trust me it wouldn't be the first time she's done it." Zack said wincing as he led them up two flights of stairs to where the bedrooms were located.

"You mean Ivy killed someone?" Carmen asked her eyes widening as she stared at the boy who was holding her gloved hand in his own without thinking much about it.

"Someone? Her kill count is almost in the triple digits by now. Of course usually the people deserve it, if not in Ivy's mind then in the governments." Zack said giving Carmen a weird look.

"How does someone deserve death and why would Ivy be the one to carry it out?" Sara asked frowning, the girl was seventeen she shouldn't have a kill count. Much less one so high.

"Ivy killed her first person when she was seven, I was four. A man broke into our New York apartment that we were living in with mom and dad. He killed our parents right in front of us and he was coming for me next, I remember that much. I remember he was standing over me with a knife and then Ivy came at him with a knife. She tackled him around the legs and knocked him down, I remember her trying to wrestle with him but he was a grown man and she was seven. Eventually he grabbed her and moved to stab her first, her knife got him in the neck before he could stab her. I remember the blood spraying and the man toppling over." Zack said his eyes far away while the others were wide eyed and Carmen was frozen. She had no clue that the two detectives were orphans, or that Ivy had killed anyone before.

"Her second kill was when she was ten, an older boy at the orphanage was going to rape her. She punched him in the throat over and over and over until he stopped moving. Her third kill was…I think when she was fourteen? She had just joined ACME, her first case actually, and the info was wrong. The guy had holed up in an apartment with a small family and a gun. Ivy took the sniper rifle from one of the responding police teams and shot him through two walls and hit him in the head before he could kill the little girl. Or was that her fourth kill? Kills number five through ninety-two were assignments from the age of fourteen to when she was sixteen." Zack said his eyes far away as he recalled learning about each kill his sister had committed. She had never hidden what she had to do from him.

"There were rumors and myths about her in ACME, but not many knew she really was real much less who she was. Only the higher ups and a few of those she had saved. They called her the Valkyrie." Jasmine said softly from behind them, making the women turn to look at her while Carmen looked shocked at the title.

"The Valkyrie? I remember hearing about her. She was the once sent after the most dangerous of criminals and she never failed a mission. Most of the underworld fears her." Carmen said making Zack snicker.

"That sounds like Ivy, able to scare the entire underworld because of her job. She was only sent after the most dangerous criminals. Terrorists, arsonists, mass murderers, sex traffickers… even things like mafia and gang members. When I joined ACME though she 'resigned' as the Valkyrie in order to stay close to me and make sure I wasn't trained as she was. She didn't want me to become a human weapon." Zack said shaking his head as he led the four down an entire wing of the mansion with Jasmine following.

"I'm not sure who her ninety-fifth kill was, just that he had been holding an orphanage hostage and Ivy happened to be nearby. The ninety-sixth kill was a man who had stabbed me. She killed him with her bare hands." Zack wrapped it up as he walked over to a set of doors. By his tone alone they could tell that he didn't want to talk about it anymore. Jasmine just nodded to the group and split from them to enter a red door with her name written on it in white.

"Okay this is where everyone's rooms are set up, Ivy and I spent the last week or so since you confirmed you were coming setting them up for you all. Hannah this one is yours, we figured you'd be better in a warmer room than most of the rest of us so you're right in between Aileen and Jasmine. All three of you have warm almost tropical rooms and I hope you don't mind but we gave your room a mix between Hawaii and Southern USA theme. We know you're superstitious so we made sure you didn't have any bad luck things in there." Zack said stopping in front of a brown door with the word 'Hannah' written on it in green.

"This is wonderful Zack! You two didn't have to go through all this trouble for me." Hannah said as the door to the room, which was as big as a hotel apartment, was opened and showed the warm comfortable looking room. Hannah had tears in her eyes as she looked at all of the lucky things that were gathered in the room.

"Oh it was no problem. We wanted you to be comfortable after all, besides I like designing things and it's always great to meet another person who respects that most superstitions started somewhere and that there's always some truth to them." Zack said as Dara separated Hannah's stuff from the rest of theirs to put it down in front of the door.

"Go ahead and settle in, you can crank up the heat as much as you need to in order to feel comfortable too. I'll come grab you when we resume the tour in a little bit." Zack said smiling at the woman who pulled him into a big hug that he returned with a laugh.

"You have a gift for designing things it seems." Carmen said smiling slightly as Zack closed the door after helping Hannah move her bags into the inside of the room.

"I was sick a lot as a kid so I would spend a lot of that time just making up new designs and playing games. Back then most of the designs were for Ivy or a few of the other kids at the orphanage that we made friends with, after we moved into our parents homes when Ivy joined ACME I started making up designs for rooms. Whenever I would meet new people that Ivy deemed as good I would start designing stuff for them too. If Ivy deemed someone good enough to trust me meeting them, then that meant they were actually good people no matter what choices they make. That's why we're never really scared of you three, Ivy deemed each of you good…" Zack said trailing off when he stopped at a grey door that had Sara's name written in blue.

"This room is yours professor Bellum. It's a little colder than Hannah's but there's a heater in there if it's too cold for you. I thought you might like a science theme." Zack said opening the door and showing the scientist the room while they were struck speechless at hearing that someone deemed them as good.

"It's wonderful Zack. Thank you." Sara said her accent out in full force as she looked at the technology and machines available in one corner of the room, but her eyes widened behind her goggles at the other wall of the room which were of a Ukrainian beach and then the other was of a Ukrainian countryside.

"I noticed your accent and brought it up with Ivy. She said it sounded more Ukrainian with a bit of Spain but had bits of other European accents in it as well. We looked up your file and found out you immigrated from Ukraine for college so I thought I'd add in a bit of your home country to the design. I hope it's alright." Zack said sheepishly and a bit nervous at the shock on the professors face.

"It's perfect Zack. Thank you." The scientist near whispered as she hugged the boy who hugged her back without hesitation.

"Oh it's thanks to Ivy I was able to get it just right. Ukraine is an anti-ACME country so I wasn't able to go there myself. Valkyrie had to go last year for a height-priority target though so Ivy had taken some pictures for me back then. I just used the pictures as a base. She's also the one behind most of the more restricted stuff we got for you to mess with if you were bored, she still has a lot of contacts from her Valkyrie days." Zack said smiling as the scientist quickly pulled away and tried to fix her face into her normal impassive or rather maniacal look.

"I'll come get you in a little while for the rest of the tour, get comfortable." Zack said smiling at the woman before closing the door.

"Ivy has underworld contacts. That explains a few thing." Carmen said realizing that it explained a few things about how the girl knew certain things or was able to get away with doing certain things.

"You haven't seen half of the things she could do with her contacts. This one is yours Dara. Ivy did most of it." Zack said walking two doors down and to a door that was purple with 'Dara' written in silver.

"Girls got good tastes." Dara said with a grin when she saw the light work out equipment in her room and the comfortable but rather energetic theme her room had.

"If you think this is good you should see the gym we've got or Ivy's personal obstacle course. I'll come get you for the tour in a few." Zack said grinning at the woman who took her suitcases and bags and took them into her room.

"Your room is right in between Dara's and Ivy's. Mine is in between Dara and Professor Bellum's." Zack said pointing out the doors in question as he led Carmen over to the red door with her name written on it in black.

"We didn't know what theme you'd like best but we found a few other things we thought you'd like and kind of worked with what we knew." Zack said sheepishly as he opened Carmen's door. The inside was a calming mix of blues and greens with some grey as well. There were posters and pictures from all over the world and plenty of artifacts and knick-knacks from various corners of the globe.

"This is perfect Zack, thank you and I will make sure to thank your sister as well." Carmen said smiling slightly as she looked around the room.

"No problem. You can keep any of the artifacts in here if you want too. They belong to me and Ivy but if you like them then you can have em, we just use them for decoration mostly." Zack said earning a surprised look from the thief.

"Go ahead and get settled. It'll be a few minutes before the tour so get comfy." Zack said as he helped her put her bags in the room and then left with a smile and wave.

Carmen gave a smile and small wave back as she began to check the room over. There was nothing. No listening devices, no recorders, no cameras, nothing but the room and the vase of flowers with the note beside it.

'Dear Carmen, hope you don't mind but we took the liberty of looking up any information there was on other girls from your orphanage. We thought you might want to talk to some of them so we left a list of their names and their last known numbers as of two days ago. If you don't want to that's fine but we thought you might like the option. Love, Ivy and Zack.'

Carmen gave a soft smile as she read the note, that was very sweet of the two detectives. Another note fell down beside the first and Carmen picked it up curiously.

'P.S. We left you a gift in the third drawer of the dresser, it's not one of your Christmas presents so you'll still get plenty of gifts. We just thought we'd let you know how we saw you and why we were so broken up when you were reported dead. Ivy put it in here but be warned she'll probably get all embarrassed and shy if you decide to wear it. It's hilarious to watch. Love Zack.'

Carmen raised an eyebrow as she read the note and then looked at the specified drawer. Opening it and pulling out the sweater she found in it.

Carmen was torn between laughing and crying when she read the sweater.

"The best thieves make the best moms to detectives." Turning it around to look at the back she really did laugh.

"And I'm the best damn thief in the world."

Carmen laughed until she felt tears in her eyes. God did she love those two detectives.