Summary:Bezas decides to steal Steves lunch. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Jemma's recovery is coming along nicely. It's a bit slow as she adjusts to her new situation. There's been several crushed mugs and assorted bits and pieces as the biochem gets used to the strength in her right hand.
Part of her recovery is physical therapy, which is why she's in the SHIELD gym at the moment. It's been a light workout and now she's cooling down, with some gentle tai chai like movements.
She's expecting one of the WAND Agents to meet her here. Not for a workout, but a … talk. Yes, a talk.
A flash of tabby coloured fur catches her attention. That's that two headed cat with what looks like someones lunch in its mouth. And it's currently booking it into the Gym.
Not that Jemma knows it, that lunch belonged to Captain America.
"Pardon me, have you seen — that way?"
Rapid footsteps can be heard to echo in the hallway outside of the gymnasium.
"Did you see — thank you."
Boy, that voice might sound familiar, even with the tension singing through it. In the doorway appears Steve Rogers, dressed in civilian button-down and slacks to go with his loafers (he wasn't expecting anyone to try and take over the world today, apparently), and boy, he looks hangry.
"That meatloaf is homemade, you thieving scuzzball, and you'd better give it back!" says he as he jogs into the gymnasium after the two-headed cat. He doesn't notice Jemma at first, what with his focus on the cat, and it appears he's barely keeping himself in check — a sudden dash of speed might end with him crashing into a workout station in these shoes, after all. A glance in her direction has him lifting a distracted hand.
"Pardon me, doc, just herding cats."
Koa Turner is coming the opposite way down the hallway and he looks… kind of a fright. His eyes won't settle on a color to be - shifting all the hues of the rainbow and then some seemingly at random. More than that, though, he's got a five foot length of the sort of chain you'd use to look up a rather heavy gate coiled up in his left hand and his RIGHT hand is wrapped from hand to shoulder in a bandage, and secured rather tightly to his side in a sling. He looks slightly less than amused.
"Cat!" He yells. "I'm going to introduce you to the chain of command. Do you know that that is? It's a chain I beat you with until you figure out who is in effing command here!"
This might all be a little… much, for Jemma, but he makes the gym about two seconds after Steve does. Mostly because he isn't running.
Meow Meommmph The cat bounds up over the workout station and stops to look at Jemma before continuing on it's way through the gym. Wait, it's turning back towards Steve, darting between his legs and up the frame on the wall.
Which is right near Koa as he enters.
"I'm not minding you, Steve…" the biochem says. A little in shock for the sudden commotion. Her eyes narrow as she looks at Koa though. That explains why she had a message to see him.
Steve makes a cautious grab for the feline, but misses — and there it goes, sleeking between his balanced legs and even bumping the brown sack-lunchbag against the inside of his shin as it goes. Turning on his heel and pinking at the ears, he gets about halfway to the door before he realizes that Koa's not exactly his normal cheery self.
Coming to a slow halt nearby to Jemma, the Captain even makes to subtly place himself between the doctor and Koa. "I can see why you're not," he asides to Jemma even as he watches Koa.
"Is there an issue here, Agent Turner?" Steve asks this in a stern, even voice.
Koa's eyes dart around for the cat as he enters from the other side of the gym and he sees it making a beeline for Steve. "I swear that thing. No issue Captain Rogers. It's just gotten out. Again." He says as he starts to move along the side of the room. He's in a mood, it seems. "Hey wait. Whose lunch is that it has?"
"Awww." One of the people working out in the gym says. "Wait a second. I know how to get the lunch back."
The agent in question goes to his bag and gets out a mouse toy. One of those catnip mouse toys.
And tosses it at the cat.
"Nowait!"
Too late.
Steve is such a boyscout as he puts himself between Jemma and Koa. "He's safe, Steve. Just looks a little off." That's an understatement from Jemma if ever there was one.
The cat eyes the mouse toy as it's thrown and moves fast. First it was on the frame, with the meatloaf hanging from its mouth. Then on the cattoy in a blink of an eye, the meatloaf hitting the ground after the cattoy is retrieved AND THEN, it blinks onto Steves shoulder.
meow meommmmph
"I've seen 'a little off' before, m'am, and eyes changing color are more than a 'little off'," the Captain quips to Jemma as he eyes his lunch in quiet frustration. Bezas gets a supremely irritated look of Rogers Disapproval. But then comes the catnip mouse and his lunch is free!
Steve attempts to take a step towards his abandoned sack-lunch and then freezes up. The sudden healthy weight of the two-headed cat on his shoulder makes him go still; he can feel the light prickle of claws as the creature balances itself. His lungful of air leaves him in a long-suffering sigh.
"…can someone hand me my lunch, please?" he asks of the room as a whole, standing there patiently.
"It's been that kind of week." Koa says. Now he's moving very, very, veeeeeery carefully.
"Alright. Just stay calm Captain. Doctor Simmons clear the room please?" He moves over toward Steve and picks up his lunch to hand to him but he's moving like there's a bomb in the room or something.
"Here you go. Don't open it just yet if you want to keep your hand." He's eying that cat which is just shaking that mouse and otherwise just acting like a cat. Albeit one with two heads.
"Nobody make any sudden movements. Especially not you, Captain."
"You clearly haven't been in my lab very often." Jemma teases Steve a little. "You'd be amazed what some of the things we find can do to a per…" She trails off as the cat appears on Steve's shoulder. "Here let me …"
But again she freezes when Koa goes so very, very still. Her hands positioned near the cat, ready to take it. "Agent Turner, what is it…?"
Bezas blinks again, this time to the bench of the chest press station.
Steve stares over now at the two-headed cat lounging on the padded bench and looks back between Jemma and Koa.
"Do I need to get the shield, Agent Turner?" he asks of the agent before he raises his voice a bit louder to carry. "Any non-essential personnel, please vacate the area slowly through the nearest exit. Do not make any fast moves, please, while Agent Turner and I handle this." He stoops to set down his lunch again, suddenly not very hungry in the face of a cat being treated with the same care as radioactive waste.
"The situation just got a bit dangerous, Doctor Simmons." Koa says, gesturing to the cat while keeping a wary eye on it.
"No I don't think there's really time for-" The cat blinks to the chest press and that makes Koa blink. His eyes. Not teleport.
"It… shouldn't be able to do that."
And then the cat opens its left hand mouth and just… swallows the benchpress whole. On moment it's there. The next moment spacetime is distorting and then… no benchpress.
"Meow-meow." It blinks again and vanishes from the room.
"This…" Koa sighs. "Is why no one is supposed to give it catnip. I'll have to-"
Blink! It's back. With someone else's lunch.
Hey. Is that Bucky's? And… Jemma's? One for each mouth.
Jemma is still 'frozen' in place, hands positioned to grab the cat as the men are talking. She doesn't have time to drop them when the benchpress disappears. "Oh … wow. Did you see that. How did it do that!" Her single good eye gleams with curiousity.
"Hey that's my lunch. Don't eat it…" Jemma starts. "Wait, Koa did you say it shouldn't be able to do that?" She looks at the cat again and shakes her head sharply. "That's going to get some time to get used to. It's got some form of device in its stomach."
It's a lot weirder than that, but that's the easiest explanation.
Steve recognizes the brown paper bag now in Bezas' mouth now: that's definitely Agent Barnes' lunch. He glances up towards the gym door as if half-expecting to hear the blistering curses leveled at the bag's sudden lack of presence at the man's desk.
"Somebody explain to me how the device in its stomach is worse than the fact that it just ate a benchpress?" the Captain asks quietly, eyeing the two-headed cat with the appropriate amount of concern now.
"Because there shouldn't be ANYTHING in it's stomach. It's an nth dimensional space." Koa says, also not moving. "This is what happen when you let Victorians try to recreate the initial conditions that made life."
Well one specific Victorian anyway.
Blink. Now it's back on Steve's shoulder. And it's still got Bucky's lunch.
"Purrrrrrrrr." It rubs one formaldehyde smelling head on Cap while the one with Jemma's lunch actually looks at her, as if playfully daring her to come get it.
"What does the device look like, Doctor Simmons?" Beat. "At least, Captain, it seems to like you. Guess that makes you America's Cat Whisperer in addition to all your other titles."
"As Koa say, Steve. There isn't anything else there. No distortion from liquids or food or the like." Jemma answers. "How do I turn this thing off…" This thing? Then Koa asks the next question. "Never mind then."
The biochem stares at the cat for a moment. "About an inch long and half an inch wide. It's not very deep at all. X-Rays don't show much else than that, unfortunately. But I could swear that looks familiar. Like the remote from a car security system."
Looking at the head with her lunch, Jemma considers. Throwing caution to the wind, she reaches for the bag.
Steve stays very still again with Bezas once more perched upon his shoulder like a demented warping Cheshire Cat. He winces at the affectionate headbutting more for the scent wafting from the creature than from the action itself; that's going to linger in his hair until thoroughly washed, he can just tell.
"So…do I just…stand here and wait for it to teleport away again or do you want me to try and scruff it or what, Agent Turner?" The Captain gives Jemma's outstretched hand a wide-eyed look — hadn't Koa just warned him not to do this very thing?!
"If you can get it without spooking it…" Koa says as Jemma describes the object. Then he actually facepalms.
"It's a cameo. It's a cameo that was known to allow for teleportation. We were studying it. The cat ate it and now IT is teleporting. That's how it's bypassing the wards we put it in." A guess but he thinks it's a good one.
When Jemma grabs her bag, the cat tugs back. It wants to play. Tug of war. On Steve's shoulder. He can feel claws dig in a little as the other head, unperturbed, continues to rub and butt against Captain Cat Whisperer.
"I must admit, Koa, I'm fascinated. I want to see the file for Bezas and the cameo. What do you mean cameo… like the brooch or the pendant?" Jemma tugs on the bag a little, not realising the cat had baited her good.
"Cameo's are quite old, generally. How old was that teleportation device?"
The head currently loving on Steve's heroic cheekbones and then over to his ear to stick a whiskered, cold nose within it makes the Captain chuff an aborted laugh. He's still wincing, his own nose wrinkled up at the scent of the animal.
"Doc, maybe let go of the bag for now? The thing's got some really sharp claws — ow," he mutters as one paw slips and resets itself. "How're you getting the cameo out of this cat? What, do we need to find some ipecac or something?"
"Cameo locket, sorry Doctor." Koa clarifies. "And in its current form it's only a couple hundred years old, but the stone it's made out of, that's the important part, is several thousand. It's been reused several times. I'll get you the files, they're interesting reads if nothing else."
The cat DOES finally let go of Jemma's lunch… but not Bucky's. That just get… swallowed.
It's at this point that Koa manages to get two hands around the cat's torso and pick it up.
"I have no idea how we're gonna get the-"
Blink. Blink. In an instant Koa AND the cat are gone. And then they reappear with Koa flat on his back and the cat standing on his chest.
"Meow. Meow." Blink.
It's gone again. And this time it doesn't come back.
Koa sighs. "Various gods…" His way of swearing, apparently.
If Steve has ANY kind of home security system, it goes off now.
"What? Oh! Sorry!" Jemma had been lost in the SCIENCE! for a moment. Just as she's about to let the bag go, the cat releases it. "Fascinating. I'd love to read it. A teleportation stone that is … ancient. It's easy to forget that some of these artifacts are much, much older than we think."
"How… I don't know if we can. I mean, I don't know if we can make the cat sleep to cut it open. Or if we can indeed cut it open." Jemma murmurs. "Ipecac though … what do you think …."
"Koa!" The agent is gone and then he's back again. On his back. Hurrying over she reaches out with her right hand - the cybernetic one. "Here, let me help you up."
Having stepped off to one side (and stooped to snatch up his lunch because he will be damned if he doesn't get to eat his meatloaf!), Steve watches as the cat pulls a series of maneuvers he's only seen in a particular strain of technology or natural human mutation.
Koa's arrival flat on his back is enough to leave the Captain blinking. His phone goes off abruptly in his pocket and not recognizing the tone as something assigned to a known party, he pulls it out to frown at it.
"…Agent Turner, are you telling me that this cat just teleported into my apartment?!" Steve doesn't raise his voice too loud but he's not impressed — and the text to follow is a familiar chime assigned to Agent Barnes. Steve looks down at it ruefully. "It teleported into my apartment," he confirms.
"Am I telling you that?" The chromatic eyed WAND agent says as Steve's phone goes off. And then the Captain confirms it himself. "Yes. Yes I am."
He takes Simmons' hand. Her cybernetic hand. This has no possible way of going wrong. Especially when he only has one good hand of his own.
"It's smart, I'm afraid. Two heads better than one is kind of literal in this case. And it seems to like you. AND it has access to a teleportation trinket so…"
Getting rid of the cat on any kind of permanent basis might be kind of tricky.
He pauses. "Does your apartment allow for pets?"
Because Steve totally wants to keep this thing, right? Even if he did… it has a teleportation trinket. It's gonna go wherever it damn well pleases.
Steve knows well that someone else has bought that damn cat in at least once. How does he think this is going to go?
Jemma doesn't think when Koa takes her hand and uses strength equivalent to what she normally would. Which might be bad. The arm activates easily when she does. Not that she really notices "It's in your apartment, Steve? Maybe you should tell Bucky to feed it. It seemed hungry."
5R
Steve looks up from texting back to his husband about the bewildering two-headed visitor with shock plain on his face.
"We have goldfish. You're telling me this thing will want to stay with us?!" He blinks and glances at Jemma, looking somewhat betrayed at her suggestion. "I'm not going to tell Bucky to feed it! If anything, I need to tell him not to shoot it — he thinks it's a hallucination right now."
Steve's fingers move as fast as they can to shoot back a text explaining that it's a rogue WAND creature, so sorry, don't give it any catnip!
"Look, I can handle cats, but a two-headed teleporting cat is potentially above my paygrade," the Captain adds, shoving his phone back into his pocket. "How in the hell do you keep it from wandering?!"
"Well we used to keep it in a warded cage but with that thing in it's gut I have no idea how we're going to conta-"
Jemma yanks Koa up hard enough that he actually leaves the ground, hits the roof and lands back heavily on his side. His RIGHT side.
"Ow…" The WAND agent has a real gift for understatement, but the other two can get an idea just how much that hurt by the fact that his eyes are BLAZING solid red when he looks back up.
"Not shooting it, is probably a good start." Jemma agrees, wincing as Koa goes ballistic. And wincing again as he lands on the floor.
"Agent Turner!" The biochems cheeks are flaming in mortification. Her eyes sheen a bit with tears of frustration. "Oh, I'm so sorry … " She reaches to help him up again and then backs off. "Uh Steve… would you … I'll call for a medic to help me."
She feels terrible, but no where near as bad as Koa.
Steve's expression is schooled into a practiced professionalism. He remembers well enough the period of difficulty that followed Bucky leaning how not to break the more delicate things around their apartment — great empathy exists given the Captain too had his own learning curve, broken shop window glass and all beside other various sundry objects.
"Get medical," he agrees with Jemma even as he's stepping over to drop down on one knee beside Koa. "Best if you laid flat on your back right now, Agent Turner. Don't move too much."
"Yeah. I'll just… do that." Koa says, rolling onto his back and laying his head back with a 'fml' look on his face. He winces when his right elbow contacts the ground. It does not like the pressure. Nothing on his right side really does.
"It's okay, Doctor Simmons. Nothing's broken. Probably. I'll just wait until the stretcher gets here."
Because he's sure as hell not going to try to get up right now.
Blink. Purr.
There's the cat. Again. It drops a dead koi on Koa's chest and vanishes again.
"… … … … I hate cats…"