CH 17: The Tail of Two Kitties
Hell reigned on Earth. Fire and brimstone rained from the sky and sulfur burned his lungs with every inhale.
The flashing lights in his eyes and the difficulty breathing couldn't be anything else…
Or at least, that is what Nickolas Fury chose to believe.
Stark, motherfucking STARK. He would use that last name as a curse for the rest of his goddamn life. No one else in the universe could cause him this amount of trouble and not be dead for it. Nick could feel his heart palpitating in his chest as Stark left the room with the… cat in his arms. He refused to think of the words that tried to smash through his carefully controlled demeanor.
Stark's threat level had just elevated. The fact that he had a -ah fuck- an alien in his company screamed questions that he needed answers to. He needed someone on the inside, probing Stark for answers on how he came in contact with the alien and if he was aware that it was an alien. Nick could feel his blood pressure rising just thinking about the shit that was coming his way.
This was, however, a blip in comparison to when Goose went missing. Only to show up later at Stark's house.
Shit.
…
'See, this is how we trick the stupid humans into giving us food.'
'Fascinating. These humans so willingly part with their spoils. How do they sustain themselves?'
'Haven't you lived with your human for a lot longer than I have? Does he not provide?'
'Foolish two-legger tried to feed me these dry morsels that tasted of chemicals and long dead flesh.'
'Ah, the horrors of kibble, I know it well. I threw up in my human's shoes when he tried to feed me such drivel.'
'I ate my human's desk.'
'Damn.'
'... and one of his human helpers…'
'DAMN!'
'I spit the human out later!'
…
'So your human built you this?'
'Yes, the mansion as a whole is mine as I please at this point. He has built me halls and rooms in my honor and clothes me in his spoils of war.'
'I was wondering why you drape yourself in metal and cloth. I allowed my human to adorn me with my neck hanging but yours is very elaborate.'
'My two-legger is very high in the hierarchy of his human colony. The jewelry and clothes are a status sign to the other humans.'
'Ah, a display of dominance through decoration. Humans are fascinating.'
'Is that why you have stayed on Earth so long?'
'Yes, and there is plenty of food.'
'How come you do not know more about humans and their ways?'
'I lived with a non-human two-legger for many years before my current one. Her ways of being and speaking were different. And, even though I am fully immersed in the ways of humans, it is hard to have full understanding with language being a barrier. It took me many years to learn that my human giving me food was a sign of care and not him telling me I am a poor hunter.'
'Humans are nurturing by nature.'
'Indeed.'
'... Want to raid the fish shelf in the human cold box?'
'Yes.'
…
"What the SHIT Licorice!"
"Tony what are you- OH MY GOD!"
'Ehehehehehe'
'Hehehehehe'
…
'You said you could feel something within me that was similar to yours, what did you mean?' Corvin asked, lounging in the sun.
Her and Goose had been spending time together almost constantly for a solid week now and they had become fast friends. Most of the time was spent with Corvin showing Goose around her spots in Malibu and terrorizing humans. It was a good time.
'Within me, and every one of my kind, is the pockets of other places. Realities and universes far from here. You do not have pockets of your own, but you have something within you that resonates with the pockets within me.' Goose replied from her lounging spot not far away. She had taken to the cat trees that Tony had installed, bouncing and running along them like crazy. The two of them would chase each other around the house, often in the dead of night when their nocturnal instincts kicked into high gear. Giving into the zoomies at 2am was a different type of high. And Tony was never prepared for when they would Noooooooom past his legs and knock them from under him.
'How does that tell you we are similar?'
'Normally, the resonation only happens when I meet another of my kind who shares a pocket with me.'
'Damn, what do you think that means?'
'I am uncertain, but curious to find out.' Goose paused to lick at a spot on her paw and rub it along her face.
'How would we find out?'
'I honestly wouldn't know where to start. I do not think there would be someone on this planet knowledgeable enough about alternate realities or realms, or who would have the machinery to learn.'
'So we need an alien…'
'Perhaps.'
Corvin had an idea.
…
When Corvin heard the word 'realms' she thought of one person, specifically, who was well known for traversing realms and dimensions with ease.
Though, getting ahold of Loki-fucking-Odinson was going to be impossible until the whole Avenger thing happened. But, if there was anyone who'd know what was up with her and the red ooze, he's the bitch.
But she can't communicate with humans or humanoids since she cannot verbalize anything. Which means she needs to find a way to do so. Which means ideas. Which means Tony, 'cuz he's smart as fuck and has a million degrees and a mile-a-minute brain. She just needs to jumpstart it in the right direction.
The typing things out method wouldn't work with him. All of his key boards were holographic and keyed into human hands. She had tried swiping at them in the air a few times, but nothing came of it.
She needed something.
Well… Desperate times…
Which was why she and Goose were where they were now.
At Goodwill.
Stealing a box of Scrabble.
Corvin and Goose snuck in like the little cretins they were, right behind a loud family with kids to distract the larger humans. They dipped and dived through used pants and shirts and other questionable clothing items. The smell was horrible. The two cats had to duck out of sight many times, but were able to get to the used game board section and find the game. Goose quickly ate it and the two escaped the store with their plunder.
… and maybe a few other things.
It was a long walk back and they stopped to beg food off the locals: cutely cuddling in the sun, grooming each other, and batting their big eyes until they were showered with chicken tenders.
They got home, bellies pudgy and fat from stuffing themselves on their spoils.
'Foolish humans, so gullible and easy to manipulate.'
'Got that right, Goose.'
The plan was simple and went about as well as Corvin expected.
She had paced down to the lab one afternoon, a bag of lettered tiles clutched within her teeth. Goose stayed in the tree fort, snoozing away. This was between her and her human.
Corvin batted at the door to the workshop and it opened up to reveal Tony, working on some schematic for Stark Industries with his music up at max volume. Her ears flattened back at the noise level and she let out a small 'scuff' in the back of her throat. How he wasn't deaf was beyond her understanding.
She trotted her plump little furbody over to a table and jumped up, claws scraping at stainless steel. Opening the drawstring bag was annoying as fuck, but she managed to dump the pieces out. She batted the mess around, looking for the tiles she needed.
Perfect.
Looking back at her human, she began to yowl loudly to get his attention.
Corvin could admit, the amount of anxiety burning in her gut could level a good sized forest. She had no idea how her human would react to her sentience. Would he shut her out now that he knew she understood everything? Would he feel betrayed? On the spot? Vulnerable?
She had no idea and it was killing her.
Spit and a prayer, if shit comes calling she had Goose at least. But it would be horrible to lose her human. She was quite fond of him.
Finally, Tony noticed her yowling and called for Jarvis to turn off the music. She stared at him with wide eyes, beckoning him over with her doe eyes.
He strode over, "Hey baby doll, how are-" his hand stopped from where it hovered over her head, eyes trained on the tiled word in front of her.
"Jarvis, did Pepper or Rhodey put this here?" he called to the ceiling.
"No Sir,"
"Then who did?"
"... from my recordings, Licorice Stick brought in and arranged the tiles herself."
Tony was quiet for a moment. And that moment stretched to a minute. Then 5. Then 10.
Just as she was about to shake the man and demand he speak, he moved. Crouching down, he looked her dead in the eyes and asked with a shaking voice:
"Do you understand me?"
All she could do was nod, anxiety flooding her body and making her ears ring.
"Holy shit."
Tony's hands came up to his face, his palms pressing into his cheeks and pushing them in a bit. He let out an explosive breath, his eyes wide and not leaving her.
"How?" he asked, his voice choking with disbelief. "I-I mean I knew cats could be pretty intelligent but if you say all cats are like… Garfield levels of intelligence, I might actually lose it. And how the fuck would you keep it from us? It's like an animal version of Toy Story." he babbled, pulling at his hair. Corvin rushed to move her tiles around before he could work himself into more of a panic.
N
This seemed to break his brain all the same, seeing that the man just stared at the tiles without saying anything for a very long moment.
"What the fuuuuccckkk." he hissed out.
She and him were truly kindred spirits.
She gave him a 'merp' sticking her tongue out in hopes her cuteness would distract him. It, sadly, didn't work.
"How are you here? Why are you here?" Tony asked, staring at her. She could see it in the tension in his body, that he was reluctant to come close to her. It hurt more than she thought it would.
W
"D N know? Do not know? You don't know how you are here or why you are here?" his eyes had a spark in them now, one that she knew well. It was the spark he got when something caught his interest, something that geared every cog in that impressive brain into motion.
She tapped her foot once forward deliberately.
"Ok, so first one no. But you know why?" She nodded. "Why?" Corvin scrunched her face as best she could, batting at all the tiles and knocking a few to the floor.
"Right, Scrabble tiles might not be the best for this. Just… just hold on a second." Tony huffed a breath, his eyes still looking a little wild. He hustled around his workshop like a man possessed, fitting and wiring things together. She was incredibly amused when Tony made a holographic keyboard on the floor. Him and Vanko really would get on like a house on fire if they put their heads together.
The only difference between the two was that Tony had added a few more things. There was a 'Yes No Maybe' section along the bottom and what looked like a predictive text pox at the top. Hopefully Autocorrect didn't fuck her up.
Corvin stood in front of the keyboard on the floor and looked up at Tony, who sat down on the floor across from her. He folded his hands together and looked at her intently, his science brain on.
"Ok, first things first. Alien?"
She clicked the maybe button.
"What do you mean maybe? I thought you said you were?"
BES PSIBL AWNSR
"Your shorthand is horrible."
CAT NOT MADE TO SPL
"Ok, valid, but that means we need a cognitive assessment to gauge your full intelligence." Tony's eyes got the science glint in them before he blinked it away. "But before that, I need to know what you mean by the best possible answer and I need an explanation on why you are here and why you have been my cat for over 2 years?"
LOVE MY HUMAN TONY, she typed, looking up at him earnestly. She was still super anxious about all of this. He was quiet on that for a moment.
"And the rest?"
WOK UP IN ALY NO MEMRY FELT NEED TO FIND U
"Need to find me?"
TUG IN CHEST CONNECTION FIND U ANYWHERE
"You're saying you have some sort of 6th sense that lets you find me anywhere?"
She poked the 'Yes.'
"Do you know why or how?"
THERIS
"Theris? Theories? You have theories on why." another 'Yes' poke, "What are they?"
COMPLICATED
"You know how to spell complicated but not theories?"
FUK U
Tony laughed at her tiny, disgruntled face. She had spend the last two to three years as a fucking cat, how was she supposed to keep up on her spelling?
"Why wait until now?" he asked, serious once again.
SCARED
"Of what?"
U MAK ME GO AWAY
He looked at her words, chewing his bottom lip in a thoughtful manner.
"I can't say what I would or would not have done at the moment." he said slowly. Corvin felt sad about this, but understood.
AND NOW?
He was quiet again, and that worried her. "I… I'll need some time to process this." he finally said to her. And she got it! She really did. But it didn't mean it hurt any less…
But if he was going to make her leave, she was at least going to tell him some things he needed to know.
TONY
He hummed in acknowledgement.
MORE REASON TO COM
Tony sat forward, "What do you mean?"
U FOR REASON
"What reason?"
TO STOP INVASION
"WHAT?!" Tony shouted, leaning back sharply like someone had slapped him. Well, it was now or never.
WHT I TELL U MUS B KEPT SECRET MY INFO ONLY GOOD IF WE KOW OTHERS KOW AN I NOT KOW ANYMORE
"About a fucking invasion? An invasion of what?! Other cat aliens?"
CHITAURI R 2 LEGS NO CAT
"Chai-Tar-ih?"
NO
"Chit-Ari?"
CLOSE ENOUGH
"What's a Chitauri?"
HIVE MIND BIG LEADER BIG ARMY
"How big are we talking?" Tony's breathing had been fairly rapid throughout the conversation, but he was pretty good at compartmentalizing. Corvin could see it in his eyes as he pushed back the fear to think.
LEGIONS MANY
The breath was punched out of Tony, a soft 'fuck' tailing at the end. He leaned back on his hands, his head tilting back to look at the ceiling, unseeing. Corvin could smell the anxiety spike in him, that sour smell that had been mixed into his scent since she first wrote hello growing to a point it hurt her nose. She moved forward, placing a single paw on his leg, chittering at him until he looked at her.
I HELP TO SAVE
"You're going to help me ward off an entire army of invading aliens?" he said, his disbelief not aimed at her, but the situation as a whole. She nodded, hitting the 'yes' button several times to get her point across.
"How? I'm just one man with a flying suit. And you are a possibly alien cat that can talk."
I HAV IDEAS U HAV SMART MIND INNOVATE
"Why me?" he asked, a bit of hopelessness coloring his voice. Corvin thought for a moment, wondering how to best get her message across. He was a smart man, but had self esteem issues a mile long. She also needed to make sure not to give away anything too big.
U HAV DRIVE U HAV MEANS U GOOD HUMAN
Tony snorted, probably at her spelling and grammar. "I guess I do have the means, my name and Iron Man carry a lot of weight. But no government is going to listen to me about an invasion. Most people don't believe in aliens." Tony pointed out. He was right, of course. If he went to the US government or the UN, he'd be laughed out of the building. Corvin thought for a moment.
I KNOW THEY SEND SCOUTS FIRS PLAN FOR THEM ON OWN
"Scouts- wait, how do you even know their plans? I thought you said you had no memory before the alleyway?"
HARD EXPLIN I SEE FAR THRU WINDOWS
"Windows?"
Ok, here comes the hard part. The very hard part.
Corvin had not been idle after learning she had some sort of red, reality bending bullshit powers. She'd been practicing! Not that it got her anywhere at first. When she first started trying to make the red thing happen again, nothing worked. And she had no strong, violent emotions to pull from to force it to happen again, so she had been shit out of luck. Thankfully, Goose came along. She could access her dimension pockets wherever she wanted, and her tentacles were also kept in one as well. Goose had explained that she had a pocket at the back of her mouth where her tentacles slipped in and out of.
The two had been going down to the beach, past the cliffs, where no cameras were at. Goose had walked her through what her species knew by instincts as young kittens. It came very naturally to Flerkens, but not so much to her. It took a lot of hours and a lot of tries for her to get the barest of what she called 'rifts' to open. Most of the time, nothing happened. It was only when she got really frustrated that little red sparks would appear in the air.
She was now hoping, with a spit and a prayer, that the tension of her current situation would jumpstart her powers.
Corvin's little cat face scrunched up as she concentrated. She concentrated really really hard at the empty space next to the two of them. All the while, Tony stared at her, perplexed.
"I can't tell if you're trying to do something, or if you're constipated." he said frankly. Corvin stopped what she was doing to glare up at him with her beady little eyes.
HAPPEN RANDOM HARD CONTRL
She typed her words angrily then sat back on her butt, a paw coming up and pointing at him. She flexed her claws in and out with an angry grumble and the human laughed.
"Is something supposed to happen there Mr Biggilsworth?"
U KNO THAT MAK U DR EVIL WTH THAT
"I think I'd make a pretty convincing Dr Evil," he said, pulling his pinky up to his mouth and doing the face. "Just know that I have a whole bag of 'Shh!' with your name on it." he quoted, using the character's accent.
HORRIBLE
"You ain't a film critic."
DONT NEED TO B ONE TO SEE U SUK
"Ohhh damn, burn me why don't you?"
STOP GIVIN ME AMMO
Tony snorted, seeming to relax into their banter. This, in turn, relaxed Corvin. Her human seemed to be more and more comfortable with the knowledge that she wasn't a normal cat. He was probably still repressing the whole 'invasion' thing.
"So what's the window thing?"
NOT SUR YET IT WORK TO SEE FAR PLACES
"And that's how you saw this invasion?" she clicked the 'yes', "and how do you know what to do?" She clicked the 'maybe.' "What do you mean 'Maybe'?"
I GIVE BASE U BUILD
Tony sighed. "Ok ok, what's the timeframe?"
SCOUT PARTY IN 2012 EARLIEST
"Shit, that gives us a little over a year to prepare." he said, a hand coming up to his face, anxiety crawling back into his scent. "You said you had an idea?" she nodded and began to type.
STARK TOWER