CH 21: HE'S A STARMAN WAITING IN THE SKY
Her eyes searched the sky.
Back and forth they darted, looking for a hint, a speck of red and gold. But there was none.
Corvin felt a wide chasm open in the pit of her stomach, a black hole in her gut that devoured her heart and crushed it to nothing.
She threw her head back and howled to the sky in anguish.
Her fault her fault her fault
She's the difference, she's the catalyst. She is here and he is gone.
Her mind ran in circles, the crushing weight of what just occurred sitting on her like a thousand tons. Her human was gone.
But she could still feel him. The tug in her chest pulled her up up upwards to the stars and she could feel the phantom beat of his heart next to her own.
Corvin turned like a whipstrike, stalking down to the penthouse in a mad dash. She made her way to Loki, who was now coming to. With wild abandon, she pounced on the Asgardian, her claws ripping and tearing into the flesh around his face and neck.
Her fault her fault her fault
Loki cried out in pain as her claws sliced through a spot on his cheek. Cold hands gripped her sides and pulled, yanking her claws out of his flesh with a wet, meaty sound and sending her flying.
Corvin landed on all fours and turned back to him, her fur puffed up in rage. Loki sat up, his hands clasped to his face and neck.
Yellow and blue whips fell away from him like spiderwebs caught in the wind. Loki's eyes opened, blue fading away to be replaced by a vivid jade green. He looked around the penthouse in bewilderment, his eyes catching on the divots in the floor where he and Thor had battled. Finally, his eyes settled on her.
A hand pulled back and looked at the blood covered fingers, eyes darting between her and the red soaked digits.
Loki was no fool.
Corvin stalked forward, her tail swishing back and forth in angry jerks. Her head tilted forwards and her ears were folded back as she growled lowly in her throat.
'Hear me, Silvertongue.' she hissed into her mind, the same spot she used for speaking with Goose. Loki's eyes widened in surprise before narrowing, a calculating gleam in them.
"I hear you, Whisperer." He said slowly, formally.
'I have freed you, you will help me.' she glared daggers into his eyes, her claws digging into the floor beneath her as she tried to control herself.
Loki looked around at his surroundings once more before looking down at his bloody hands, and then to her.
"What is it you need my assistance for, Whisperer?" he asked.
'My human sacrificed himself to save this world from your former Master's harbinger. He is lost amongst the stars. Help me bring him back. That is my price for freeing you.' she growled low, her eyes flashing red in her anger. Loki leaned back away from her at this, the calculating look greater than ever.
"Why should I?" he asked, peering at her curiously. "I admit, you freeing me has done me a service, though I would have freed myself eventually. What is motivating me to help you, other than honor?" he tilted his head in question, a mocking tone hidden underneath layers of platitude.
Corvin bared her teeth in a mad growl.
'I have seen you, Loki Laufeyson. I have seen the Mad Titan and his plans, I have seen you and your role in what is to come.'
Loki looked visibly confused and greatly wary at her words. "You claim visions of the future?"
'I see you, all of you. What you were, what you are, and what is to come.'
He looked very alarmed now, leaning back against the wall and staring at her intently.
'Help me, as I have helped you. And I will help you once more.'
"How?" he demanded, his eyes squinting at her in suspicion.
'Someone close to your heart knocks on the gates of Helheim. Gold is her crown and gold is her shroud.' Making Loki think she's some sort of norn-blessed cat? Not her best idea. No doubt going to bite her in the ass later but she'd deal with that after she got Tony back.
Loki hissed in anger, leaning forward suddenly, his face in hers. "You leave my mother alone!" He yelled, a wild look in his eyes.
'It is not I that haunts her footsteps, but a threat not yet come to pass. Help me and I will tell you what you need to know to save her.' she hissed back, not backing down. Her heart thumped loudly with anger and anxiety. This was not how she wanted this to happen. She had wanted her first encounter with Loki to go smoothly, happily. But this? This was a mess.
Loki grit his teeth, glaring daggers at her smaller form.
"Swear it." he said through clenched teeth.
'I swear, to help you save your mother after you help me save Tony Stark.' she swore, her eyes gleaming eerily in the light. She jutted her head out, looking at him intently.
"I swear, to help you retrieve your human Tony Stark in return for helping to save my mother from whatever threat you have seen." Loki oathed next. The air crackled around them and she watched, fascinated, as a string of green light lept out from his body and attached itself to hers. She felt it around her, like a shackle, holding her to her promise.
Corvin's fur settled once more against her back, her ears unfolding from where they had been pressed against her skull.
Loki looked at her with a miffed expression as he stood, dusting himself off.
"Miss Licorice?" JARVIS's voice called from the speakers. Corvin looked up, letting out a 'merp' to let him know she heard him. "I can assume, from Loki's part of the conversation, that you intend to retrieve Sir?" She could hear the desperate undertone to his voice as he asked. She nodded fully, tapping her foot down on the ground twice in a 'yes' sign.
She looked at Loki, who was looking around the room suspiciously, no doubt looking for the source of JARVIS's voice.
'Please tell him to hold down the fort while I am gone, and to not let anyone take Tony's stuff. He'll need it when he gets back.'
Loki looked close to refusing but relayed what he had said anyway.
"That will not be a problem, Miss Licorice. Sir made arrangements just before the portal that Miss Potts would inherit everything should he pass." That was very good, Pepper would not get rid of Tony's things any time soon, which gave her time to go and retrieve him. She gave another nod and looked up to Loki.
"However," JARVIS interrupted, "I have a request."
Corvin let out a small merp in question, her head tilting back up to the ceiling.
"I wish to go with you."
'How do you plan on that?' she asked, waiting for Loki to translate.
"I will download a copy of my consciousness to a device that you can bring with you. One of the MMI devices specifically." Corvin made a surprised noise at this. MMI stood for "Me, Myself and I" and was a project she had prompted Tony towards. In the event of a catastrophic virus or mainframe malfunction and JARVIS was lost, one of the MMI devices held a complete backup of his AI consciousness. The backups were updated frequently, once a month, and kept completely separate from JARVIS incase.
"I have taken the liberty of beginning a new download of my current code to one of the handhelds. It will be ready in approximately 20 minutes."
She nodded once more and looked up at the man next to her, 'We need to make a quick stop before then,' she said. Loki raised a brow.
"Where to?"
Corvin ran up to the door of the Malibu mansion, JARVIS helpfully opening the door for her. Loki was somewhere behind her, invisible and silent. She dashed through the front door and took her little elevator up to her cat tree room, her old injuries were acting up quite a bit after the excitement of the day.
Getting to her room, she walked in and climbed up to the topmost sunny spot, where her quarry laid sunbathing.
'Hello, Child.' Goose purred from where she laid in the sun, her eyes squinting in a cat's version of a smile.
'I'm a grown-ass cat, you know that?' Corvin replied, moving closer and giving Goose a hello sniff.
'What brings you back to the seaside nest? Did your two-leg's tall metal nest not suit you?'
'That's the thing, my two-leg is gone.' Corvin informed Goose merousely. Goose picked herself up from where she lay, giving Corvin her full attention.
'I am sorry to hear of your loss, I know you care for your two-leg.' she said softly, giving Corvin a comforting nuzzle.
'Yes, I do. Which is why I'm going to go and get him back.' Corvin said determinedly to the smaller cat.
'I thought you said he was gone?'
'Lost but not dead.'
'Ah, I see now.'
'I've come to ask If you'd join me?' Corvin asked tentatively, her nose wiggling. Goose cocked her head to the side.
'Adventure?' she purred, looking pleased.
'Yes, and I'm sure there will be plenty of bad people to eat.'
Goose purred loudly, biffing her face against Corvin's larger one. 'I shall join you, my friend. And we shall hunt your two-leg down and return him to the nest.' Corvin leaned her head against Goose's.
'Thank you,' she said, trying to broadcast her gratitude over the mental bond. Goose seemed to pick up on her feelings and gave her nose a boop with her own.
The two walked out of the Malibu mansion together to see Loki waiting outside. He balked when he spotted Goose.
"That is a Flerken." He said, aghast.
'Goose is a friend.' Corvin said, huffing at him.
"That friend could eat you, me and the entire population of the Western seaboard and still have room!" he snapped. Corvin rolled her eyes at his dramatics.
'I have no intention to eat that many two-legs, no one would be around to make my fish sticks.' Goose said over their mental connection. It seemed Loki heard it just the same, however, and he scoffed at her words.
"Norns have mercy," he grumbled to himself.
He had been floating in the void, stars like pindrops in his vision. Debris of the destroyed Chitauri ship littered the empty space around him, floating suspended in the vacuum. He was losing air fast, the CO2 levels of his suit climbing and climbing. Tony had closed his eyes, accepting his fate.
He had not expected to wake up.
Tony came with a gasp of air. His suit's weight pinned him down, holding him hostage in his own tech. With fumbling fingers, he found the hidden seams in his armor and began to pull it off piece by piece. Once free, Tony observed his surroundings. He was in some sort of metal room, completely filled with junk and scrap. A lot of it he recognized as parts from the Chitauri ship, but most was completely alien to him. A mechanic's playground. Had he the time, Tony would have loved to dig through the scrap and figure out how everything worked.
Tony focused.
Grabbing at his suit's chest piece, he opened a small compartment. There laid a few of his handier tools, something he could use to do small repairs on the fly. He quickly did what he could to fix up his repulsors, connecting them manually to a bare-bones skeleton of his chest piece that was, in turn, connected to his arc reactor. The low whine of his repulsors turning on settled a tension in his shoulders he had not noticed before.
Getting up, he carefully walked his way through the junk pile. He felt exposed, leaving most of his suit behind, but it was dead weight without JARVIS and he needed to be light on his feet.
He found a door-like structure and managed to open it. He snuck down the hall, noting the grimy interior and horrible smell. Everything was covered in a layer of dirt or some type of greenish oil. The pipes were rusted and many looked to be broken and repaired with shitty patches.
He spotted a small porthole and peered out. Seeing the far expanses of space outside the window had him jerking his head back with a gasp. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to stave off the panic that rose at the sight. Forcefully ignoring what was on the other side of the window, Tony continued on.
He ducked and dived through the ship, avoiding any signs of life and gaining any information he could. Thankfully, it seemed like the ship was not manned by Chitauri. But that didn't mean that they were not affiliated, and Tony definitely did not want to find out.
If he had to guess, he'd say he was picked up by a scrapper.
At one point, he was hiding in the vents, trying to be as quiet as possible as he snuck through. Handily, he stumbled upon a grate that led to a very populated room full of aliens of different shapes, sizes and colors. There were a few human-looking aliens, which sparked a million questions in his head. He listened into the conversations, but was frustrated to realize that he could understand none of them. Many of the aliens seemed to be speaking different languages all together, but communicated just the same. Either every alien here was multilingual, or Tony was missing something.
He continued to crawl along the vents for a long time, popping out to steal food and scraps. Tony set up a hub for himself in a small crawl space that was teaming with wires and space critters that liked to bite.
Grunting, he squished another bug looking alien that was trying to nibble on the sole of his shoe. He had, laboriously, dragged his deactivated suit into the crawlspace and had been working on repair ever since. It was moving along at a slow pace, his progress hindered by the alien tools and metals. But he was learning. His mind was open and expanding, grasping onto the influx of new knowledge with clawed fingers like a man starved.
He had found so much already. Ideas and inventions swirled around his mind and his hands ached for the familiar weight of his tools in his home lab.
It was the 7th day that the ship shuttered under him and stopped him mid rewire. His suit was almost operational. He could wear it and move in it, but the finer details were lost due to his suit no longer being connected by JARVIS.
Tony's head jerked up, his eyes narrowed as he felt the ship continue to shutter around him. He raced through the vents, carefully avoiding the creaky bits as he scuttled around to the closest window. Peering out, he saw nothing but a fiery aura over the opening, the light shining over his sweaty, dirty features.
They were entering the atmosphere of a strange, deep purple planet that was absolutely crowded with metal buildings so tall they touched the outer stratosphere and looped around the planet like rings. Other ships dotted the sky, many leaving and coming at the same time.
It was a space port.
