Chapter 2: Finding Things out the Weird Way
Corvin honestly didn't have the high hopes of locating RDJ after that, so instead she wandered aimlessly around, following a tug in her gut that just had her moving. It was night time now, but Malibu was famed for the night life so it was bright enough out it might as well have been day.
The foot traffic was worse at night, Corvin had learned quickly. Drunk people had a habit of stumbling everywhere unpredictability, leading to her getting trod on a few more times than she was willing to admit. But, thankfully, the hussle and bussle slowly melted away to a more scenic roadway with no foot traffic. Actually, there was no traffic at all.
Wait, was this a driveway?
A single row of palm trees lined the side of the road, a meticulously tended lawn sprawled out on either side. And was that a helicopter pad? Damn, this person was loaded. At the end of the curving drive was a house. Well, more like a mansion. It was fuckin huge and practically oozed the aura of money. She wouldn't be surprised if it had a golden toilet, maybe some of those diamond-glass chandeliers or platinum coffee cups. She didn't know how the 1% liked to spend their 90% of the American wealth.
Ah, salt...
Anywho, this place was very modern, all sleek lines with white marble and gray steel. The main entrance held a circle drive with a small oasis in the center, palm trees sticking up in different directions. To her smaller stature, the place was ginormous, not that it wouldn't be even if she was in her human body, but damn.
Question was, what now? She didn't intend to come here, just followed where her feet took her. She supposed the huge place warranted an expedition of exploration.
Padding around the oasis, Corvin moved to the side of the mansion. She inspected the side of the house, stepping over the lights that lined the side of the drive and casting dramatic shadows over her form in the darkness of the evening.
Sniffing the air, she could smell something familiar, and realized it was the same scent that came from RDJ.
Holy shit, what are the odds.
Corvin moved to the door, sitting in front of it and wondering what the hell she was going to do next. She could find a way in, wiggle her way into his good graces. Didn't he have kids? She has no idea how old they are, she wasn't up to snaz with celebrities.
Hopefully they like cats. Maybe she could become some sort of pseudo cat nanny. But then again, the thought of tiny child hands tugging along her fur makes her anxious. Maybe she can just hide from all but RDJ and his wife? Chill like the best cat so they won't get rid of her until she can find a way home.
Now, she could do that, or she could snoop around the property for a bit…
Snooping was fun.
With no small amount of glee, Corvin took off around the house to explore.
The property was like a Disney Land for cat-sized visitors. It had so many nooks and crannies that were far too small for humans, but just a slight squeeze for her. Ramps two inches wide she could climb to the roof on and holes in the decorative roof plating (suspiciously looking like blast-proof support struts) that she could shimmy through to the other side. Beyond the struts was a sleek, modern-looking roof, mainly flat with gentle slopes down that were aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
She could waltz across the roof, down the slopes to another part of the roof that curled away from the main part of the house and overlooked the sea. From the lower angle this roof provided, she could see a pool on the other side of the house and, if she shimmied down a particularly narrow patch of roof, a large window to part of the house.
Which was where she was now, peeping like a creeper and feeling only slightly weird by it.
She appeared to be looking through a window on the far left side of the main living room. A living room that this author wasn't going to trouble herself writing about because explaining it would take too damn long. It was expensive and modern looking, it had a couch and a kitchenette, that's all you need to know. Also there was a waterfall around a circle staircase and Corvin thought that was both excessive and awesome.
I want a waterfall, Corvin hummed and hawed in her mind, scooting closer to the window. Waterfalls made her feel that zen vibe she tried (and failed) to achieve when she was human, so she had stuck to the opposite vibe. Leather jackets didn't agree with her, but she thought she looked damn good in black fishnets and ankle-breaker heels. Hippy wannabe and stripper aspirations aside, the waterfall was a nifty decoration.
There wasn't anyone in the room. Also, it was pretty darn clean, which begged to question how the hell it was if RDJ was sporting a few tiny troublemakers. Maybe she was wrong in that regard, or maybe they were older?
Corvin's cat-face scrunched up in doubt. Something wasn't sitting right, but she wasn't omnipotent so she was willing to hedge she read something wrong.
Pressing her face to the glass, she observed the room, taking in all the details, her mind wandering to the past few days as she stared at the waterfall. It was like meditation. Letting all the thought just float out of her head as she stared at the water flowing down into the pool that circled the staircase like a moat. Little blotches of red slid across her vision as she sunk deeper into the cat-trance, the blobs of color floating around the room in lazy, unconcerned motions. It was kind of like when one closes their eyes and can see a flicker of color behind them.
What sent her back to reality was the lights, the house lights, flickered for a moment. Blinking out of her trance, Corvin backed up from the window. The red flickered out of existence and she wrote it off as one of those cat things.
Looking around the room once again, Corvin was startled to see a man had been standing there, looking up at her with a flabbergasted expression. RDJ said something, his words so muffled by the glass (probably some sort of bulletproof stuff) that even her enhanced hearing couldn't make it out. No doubt it had something to do with her.
Corvin decided then that her presence was probably not welcome like this, staring at him through the window like a gremlin, and shuffled back up to the main part of the roof.
She sat on the lower part of the roof for a bit, wondering what to do next, to go down and see him, meet and greet the fam and maybe get tossed out or taken in, or just slink off into the night. But her decision was made for her when RDJ came up onto the roof himself.
"How the hell did you get here? I'm all for taking a pretty lady home, but normally she comes through the front door rather than sit on my roof." he grinned, walking from the higher part to her lower part of the roof. As he got closer she could see his grainy jeans, stained with something dark and oily in splotches along his outer thighs and above the knees. He also wore a black and silver Metallica t-shirt that looked well worn and well loved. The lights from both the large windows below the eaves and the skylights in the roof caste sharp, dramatic shadows across his body and face, reminding Corvin of something straight out of The godfather or The Addams family. RDJ did have some killer cheekbone definition like Morticia Addams.
He squatted next to her within touching distance, looking her over with a critical eye.
"You know, I'm not overly fond of cats, or animals in general. I know, crime against the universe, but everyone says I can't stand someone being more important than me in the room, and the cat always takes the limelight." he said, self deprecation and boastful ego laced in his voice so tightly she could have used it as a rope to climb Mt Everest.
And like the grinch, her heart grew three times its size.
Corvin always had a ridiculously large amount of sympathy and empathy. She couldn't not comfort this man.
Standing back up from where she sat, she moved closer to him, mowing softly up at him like she was saying 'hey.' She bumped her head against his knee, feeling the texture of his jeans pulling lightly at her fur.
She caught the look on his face as she moved back, a curious but slightly miffed expression. Was touching a no-go? She couldn't exactly ask.
But before she could do anything, she was scooped up into a pair of surprisingly muscular arms.
Ah, this is the life, she thought, inner self-indulgent imp making triumphant heu-heu-heu sounds.
She had to point out that he smelled pretty darn good, a musky cologne that smelled like it cost an arm and a leg, motor oil and metal with a hint of what she was pretty sure was a bourbon or scotch coming from his breath. It was one of those smells that sat in the back of your throat, one that made you breath in deeper to try and memorize it just right because you knew you'd never find it anywhere else.
She settled into his arms, but it was clear he didn't know how the hell to hold a cat. Her back legs dangled in the air as his arms were around her middle, front legs held at an awkward angle. It put her whole body into an uncomfortable tension, the weight of her body focused on a single point in her back that made it ache.
Corvin let out an irritated grumble, wiggling her back legs and trying to find purchase on the man's body to take the tension off.
"Stop wiggling you oversized fur-ball." RDJ huffed, hauling her further up in his arms. Thankfully the shifting allowed her back feet to find purchase on the underside of his arms. With her claws that she may or may-not have forgotten about.
"Son of a bitch!" he yelled, letting her go, which tugged her hooked back claws out of his arm, which prompted more cursed.
'Learn how to hold a damn cat, you ass' she mowed and hissed up at him after she landed back on the roof.
"It's not my fault cat's are built like limp noodles." he sassed back, as if reading her mind. He looked down at the rows of thin scratches along the back of his arm, the line of the scratch bright white with droplets of blood dotting it, the area around it was red as if someone had slapped the arm. "Look what you did, Puss In Boots." he said in an accusing tone, holding his arm out to her as if to guilt her.
Admittedly, she did feel a little guilty. But it's not like she could show him so she sat back on her hindquarters and reached up with her two front paws. The balancing act was a bit difficult, and she wobbled a bit as she reached up to the arm that was very much out of her range.
He gave her a peculiar look and lowered his arm, as if testing her or himself. She ignored the expression and wrapped her paws (claws retracted, she had to think about it for it to work) and pulled his arm to her face. She gave the arm a few presses against her face, not licking it but kinda just mashing it to her face near the scratches.
He gave her a flabbergasted look.
"Did… did you just kiss my boo-boos?" he choked out, like he just saw both most unexpected and amusing thing ever. Like a flying pig or singing walrus. She gave him the best smug look a cat face could, which looked like a fairly normal cat face, because normal cats are in an eternal state of smugness.
He seemed to shake off whatever funk her sloppy attempts to 'kiss it better' put him in.
"You're previous owners sure trained you weird." RDJ said, placing a hand over the scratched area. If Corvin though she could shrug without freaking him out, she would. But she was willing to just let him think she was some over-trained cat. "Can you adhere to commands, I wonder?" he mused to her, fingers tapping on his arm like a nervous or thoughtful ticc.
He gave her a serious look, which she didn't (read: couldn't) take seriously.
"Sit," he said, with as much conviction as possible, like the world would bend down on it's knees had he asked it. Corvin, gleefully, ignored him.
"Erm.. play dead? Roll over? Handstand?" he rattled off more, seeming to grow more and more petulant with each failed attempt. It almost broke her resolve, seeing those puppy dog eyes aimed at her, be she held on, knowing it would be worth it should he fall into her trap.
"Come on, you can kiss owies, but you can't sit or roll over? Come on now, what kind of weirdo cat are you?" he amped it up, going full dramatics. Talk about a diva. But Corvin was soaking it up, finding his antics humorous. "Do I have to beg? Please, sit?"
He said it snidely, fully expecting her not to listen, but too much on a roll to stop with the whole act. Which made his facial expression all the sweeter to her when she did sit down.
She was laughing internally at his wholey indignant expression.
"Smart-ass cat," he said, crossing his arms and giving her an 'I find this vaguely insulting but also humorous' look. She had a feeling he wore that look a lot, if how the laugh/frown lines on his face perfectly moved into the look. Corvin's tail flicked behind her, a cool ocean breeze catching in her fur.
He stood back up, still holding onto his injured arm with the other.
"Well, I'm getting the hell off this roof, it's cold as hell up here and I'm not a fan." He hummed and began to walk back to where he had come from and Corvin didn't hesitate to follow him down.
The next few hours were a bit of a rush. A whole lot happened and yet, a whole lot didn't happen.
For one, she realized she was utterly fucked.
This grand epiphany happened when she slipped into the mansion and the fucking thing talked.
"Sir, It appears you have a guest," a British voice called from the ceiling, causing no small amount of shock from her furry self. More so because she so fucking knew that voice, and if it was the real deal and not some very very elaborate prank, then she was far more screwed than just being stuck as a cat. And she didn't know a single soul that would go to such lengths at her expense.
And you know that gut feeling you get when you know something to be true even though you absolutely wish it wasn't? Yeah, she had it in heaps and bounds.
She had, at that moment of revelation, stared at RDJ - oh god, no, it was Tony Stark - in such bafflement and shock, she was sure she was petrified. Or dead.
Thankfully, Stark (oh goooood) didn't seem to notice, making coffee for himself and pulling out something from his massive fucking fridge. It was chicken, she would later find out.
After about fifteen minutes of constant internal screaming, the cause of said internal screaming morphed from shock to elation. Because she was a super big Iron Man fan.
It would be the first of many that she was grateful for her sudden furry situation, or else she would have definitely said something very very stupid and embarrassed herself. Corvin was pretty sure her brain-to-mouth filter was broken and she would have blurted out something mortifying, like a squeal, or rub herself up and down him like a stripper on a pole. She was sure her dignity would never ever recover.
She was saved from sure death from humiliation by the grace of her feline problem. Instead of making ignominious noises or getting arrested for sexual harassment, she was reduced to some weird hissing purr noise that sounded like she had something stuck in her throat.
Thank whatever divine power was watching over her in that moment. Fucking ThAnk YOu. Fucking hell.
After ungluing her paws from the floor, she made her way stiffly to the island in the kitchen and hopped up on one of the barstools. She didn't know how Tony-fucking-Stark felt about animals on the tables. She knew her family and friends from back home didn't let it fly, so, caution instead of careless.
She did somewhat sit in the chair, her back legs under her in the seat, and her front paws on the counter edge.
Stark gave her an amused look at that, but she'd be damned if she was anything but polite. She didn't want to get kicked out now, not when her favorite Marvel character was there, serving her chicken on a small paper plate.
She ate with as much manners as a cat could hold, her eyes never leaving the man in front of her and low-key hoping to impress him with her impeccable cat-manners. He was also staring back, looking over her with a critical look in his eye. She knew she wasn't the most well-groomed cat, but she sure as shit wasn't licking herself clean. Gross.
The man hummed, a small frown forming on his face as he looked her over.
She felt a small swell of indignation at this, to see the assessment in his eyes and find herself lacking. A small well of hurt also accompanied it, but she was going to ignore it.
She glared up at him, her big cat-eyes making it lose some of the desired effect. Who was he to judge her? She knew his life like the back of her hand (paw?) and he had to right to judge her. He looked worse than her any day of the week after hermiting out in his lab, so forgive her for not sticking her tongue on fur that had been dragged all over Malibu.
A part of her knew she was probably overreacting (though her tantrum was mental, so unless he was hiding a telepathy ability in there...) a smidgen, but it had been a stressful week.
She huffed at him and jumped off the seat to the floor, very much intending to explore, look around and see if he had any cool techy toys she could play with. Corvin was a snoop, sue her.
Except her grand plan was thwarted by a pair of muscly arms that, if she had been human, she would have salivated at. Hell, she was now, but that thrust a whole can of worms into her unwilling cat arms, because, shit, she couldn't get laid in this body. Which was a fucking tragedy. The universe was laughing, she was sure. Stick her with a hottie she held the biggest fucking lady boner for, but stick her in a body where she couldn't get some of that sweet, sweet ass. Unless she took a foray into bestiality, but that was a heavy 'no-go' zone of thought for her.
Corvin didn't have any more opportunity to weep over the tragedy of her now nonexistent sex life, because she was being tossed out the front door.
Corvin's second discovery of the night: Tony Stark was an asshole.