2019-11-15 - Meow if your name is May

Summary:

May locking herself in an office garners concern and a handful of agents, and then reveals that she's now, somehow, a cat. Bucky, Steve, Keiko, and Koa all pitch in to 'rescue' the agent turned cat from under a sofa.

Log Info:

Storyteller: None
Date: Fri Nov 15 04:41:19 2019
Location: Triskelion

Related Logs

None

Theme Song

None

keikokoa-turnerbuckysteve-rogersmelinda-may

WAND, the occult and supernatural subset of SHIELD, has a section of the Triskelion set aside for them and for good reason. It's as common as not for random magical effects to be seen here and there as the agents and consultants test devices, experiment with procedures and techniques, or something is accidentally set off.

Today was one of the latter.

Agent May, having been there speaking with Agents Turner and Kurita had just been reaching into a pocket when a wash of orangey arcane power swept through the room. For a moment, it seemed inconsequential, but then May blinked twice, glanced to one side, then told the two WAND agents she needed a moment. It would be easy to mistake her actions as having received a priority communication, but she disappeared into an unoccupied office and hasn't emerged again.

It's been an hour since that happened and Operations confirmed that they had not contacted May in twice that long, which is no doubt concerning. Especially since the door is locked and not responding to the WAND agents' badges.


Around the end of hour one, Steve had suddenly looked up from his screen at his desk with a frown on his face when it occurred to him: Agent May hadn't responded to his email inquiring about the state of affairs involving the AIM weaponry currently stashed away in SHIELD R&D. The email had been sent this morning, almost promptly after the Captain had shucked his coat over the back of the chair and sat down with a coffee in one hand, a half-eaten bagel in the other, and gotten down to business.

It had sent him on a mission to go find his fellow agent and he'd run into Agents Turner and Kurita in the process. This had evolved into another task entirely. After a good number of comments out of Steve like, "You're kidding." "Really?" "Alright, if it's not permanent." and then a good number of exclamations like, "Whoa — what — WHAT — JESUS — THE HELL?!", the task is complete. He does add, at one point, "It tickles."

However, it's reaching that two-hour mark and he's almost immediately off to find his other half in regards to not only a new tattoo, but a missing May. At the Triskelion's firing range, the Captain lifts a hand to get his husband's attention. Bucky is greeted with a solemn expression belied by a divot of worry between brows. "Buck. Lost a birdwatcher, think you can help me locate her?"

The slang might ring a bell: British for 'agent'.

"May's been silent for two hours. She's still on-site, but nobody knows what's going on. We gotta get back to Turner and Kurita," he explains sotto-voce.


Of course Buck's down on the range. It's almost peaceful for him, meditative. But Steve's appearance is greeted first by a frankly rather dippy smile, and then a frown at that revelation. He's holstering the weapon he was testing, hastily sets the range back to default, and then he's coming to Steve in a few strides. "Yeah," he says. "Who're we lookin' for?"


Keiko Kurita is down to her her tank top, displaying the ink on her arms and shoulders. Anyone who had known the woman before this week will know that those parts of her body were covered in tattooes - now, there's two big spaces of dusky skin.

"You will look after her, right?" She had to Steve when the tattoo had transferred. The biggest surprise to all present had been the way it had resized. That shouldn't have surprised anyone, really, the tattooes were magical in nature after all. Still, it *had* been surprise.

Distractedly as Bucky asks his question, Keiko looks to her partner in concern. "Has she really been gone that long? Agent May, I mean?" then to Bucky "Agent May absented herself and we need to find her."


he dragon had been the one that Koa HADN'T wanted to put in a jar. They of course retain the option but the creature is powerful enough that he didn't really want to test that as a long term storage option. Better that someone should hold onto it. Steve can handle a dragon right?

Did Kieko and Koa warn him of the side effects? And that these things have a mind of their own? And had ANYONE warned Bucky?

Either way Koa is standing in front of the door with his arms folded. "Agent May. Who SHOULD be in there. Normally I'd just kick the latch in but WAND has a lot of anti-violence wards to prevent visitors from getting up to no good. So…"

Koa hands Keiko a screwdriver. "Good thing we have a handiman present."

It doesn't take Keiko long to get the door of it's hinges and when it is there isn't any immediate sign of May.

"Wot's all this now?" The voice comes from a new weight on Bucky's meat Shoulder. There's a transparent blue fox balancing there, sounding ever so slightly like Michael Caine.

HISSSSS! That comes from Steve's shoulder at basically the same time. There's an… the only word for it is an Imp. A squat little creature that sort of resembles Jabba-The-Hut's pet muppet. Only meatier. And nastier looking.

"Well I can see that they've taken the door off, there's no need to be rude about it." The fox shoots over Bucky's shoulder.

Koa rolls his eyes and steps into the room. "Agent May?"


The room is sparsely furnished, with a desk and chairs to one side, a leather loveseat on the other. In the middle of the floor, May's clothing. It almost looks like she collapsed, and that's how the clothes are left, except for the jacket and shirt, both of which appear to have been pulled slightly away from the rest in the direction of the love seat.

At K'nert's hissing, there's a responding hiss. From the direction of the love seat.


Keiko was assured the safety of the living tattoo now spread across Steve's back and not only over his left shoulder to rest its head on his pectoral but also around his right ribs to slink tail along a cutline. Most of it's hidden away on the super-soldier's body given the long-sleeved shirt he wears overtop a white tanktop, but lo…is that the tip of a wing just along the nape of his neck? — and surely a horn curling up to show beyond the neckline to his front? Yes, it is.

He told Bucky! …or he thought he did, at least? Even Steve is human in the end.

That Imp, however, has Steve looking away from his wide-eyed stare at the translucent fox to see the creature on his shoulder appearing far less appealing. "JESUS?!" It's the Imp who was certain to visit him while he was in the glass-walled cell suffering his lycanthropic state. "Agent Turner, please remove this creature from my shoulder before I find out how far it'll fly," the Captain asks in a tone of profoundly forced calm.

He heard the responsive hiss, however, and gestures in half-distracted motions for the others to go into the room because he's about five seconds from hurling K'nert down the hallway with full serum'd force.


Steve's tattoo…..Buck's got his mouth open to ask, and then there's that fox. He's hastily trying to step out from under it, even as he lifts a hand to remove it. It may be sentient and wanting to be best buddies. "Hey, dinner and a movie first, before you get your paws all over me," he protests.

But even as he's reaching for it, there's that hiss. "What the hell is going on here?" he demands. He sounds neither panicked nor angry. Just faintly put-upon. Another day with SHIELD.


"Is there a demon in here?" Keiko sticks her head in the door, frowning at the hiss that answers K'nert.

Before she knows it, Bella simply appears beside her and bounds through the room towards that hiss.

"BELLA!" Keiko actually yells, moving to follow the wolf. "GET BACK HERE!"


Koa looks down at the pile of clothing on the floor and frowns. "Steve, Bucky, we might have a problem here. Let me call-" Hiss. Not from the imp (K'nert is it's name). No, from the direction of the loveseat in the office. His eyes turn to see… a tortoiseshell cat.

"What. The. F-"

"FELINE!!!" The Fox obligingly gets off Bucky's shoulder about the same time K'nert gets off Steve's. Koa turns when the Captain asks for help, but the imp has already decamped.

And then Bella knocks him over. "Ow! The hell?!"

Bella's going for the cat, isn't she?

"Keiko, get ahold of your wolf. Cap, Bucky, there's a cat in here. Don't let it get away!"

He's got a really bad feeling about this cat.


A cat all right. The slender and long-limbed body type that one would immediately call Siamese, but in black and orange tortoiseshell fur instead of classic Siamese points though currently what should be sleek fur is puffed out, especially on the tail.

When the wolf rushes the loveseat, the cat yowls one of those blood-curdling screeches and retreats as far back under the loveseat as possible. Anyone or anything that gets close enough will feel a particularly sharp set of claws.

May's mind is muddled and thoroughly confused, everything being strangely washed out color-wise and her senses are completely overwhelmed by the onslaught of noises and SMELLS. So many SMELLS.


Was that…a low growl from Steve at the response to the fox? Who's got paws on Bucky?! There and gone again, the reddish twinkle in his eyes, replaced after a sharp shake of his head and shimmying roll of shoulders now that the K'nert is vanished.

But then there's a wolf — and a cat — and May's clothing is oddly absent of her body, which bodes no good.

Darting into the room as to allow the others to enter, Steve then takes up a readied stance in the doorway, half-crouched, hands lifted at the level of his chest, looking for all the world like a quarterback about to catch a hiked football.

Except for a football, a tortoiseshell cat if she heads his way.


It's under the couch. And guess who has a metal hand that kitty claws can't bother? So it's Buck who gets down and reaches under, making the kissy-face noise everyone instinctually knows how to make to endear themselves to cats. Not that he won't just grab her, if he has to. But maybe she'll yield and come quietly…..right?


"I'm trying to!" Keiko growls at Koa, slitted eyes flashing yellow as the brand on her torso glows as well. The other tattooes on her arms all writhe as well, the dragon on Steve might do so as well.

"Bella …"

The wolf ignores her, going down on her front paws on the other side of the chair, snuffling her nose under it and …. whining.

Such a big brave wolf.


More hissing and another shriek from the cat punctuates the claws that swipe at the wolf's nose.


If Steve is paying attention the fox picks up it's pace just a tad when he growls. The imp, however, ambles. It ambles on over to the desk, climbs up it and sits in a remarkably human like fashion.

"Ow." Koa says picking himself up, silvery eyes flashing. "Bella I wouldn't." He warns the wolf. "Um… yeah, I think you've got the right idea Bucky."

He peers around the room and frowns, seeing things the others aren't.

Then he leans over to Steve, who is still in his stance. "Holy shit. That's May under the couch there."

This may possibly break Steve? May is cat. Then again, maybe not. He was a werewolf not too long ago.

"What has gotten INTO Bella, Keiko?"


The cacophany of sounds and smells have May in a true panic, her currently feline brain not handling the information as well as her human brain would. And in her panic, she's lashing out. Flight is off the table with so many FEET blocking her way out, so fight it is.

And then there's a hand reaching for her. The attempted reassuring noises from Bucky earn him a hiss in reply, but his reaching hand gets swatted with claws out. Repeatedly. And VERY quickly.

The sounds of paw and claws on metal is likely audible even past Bella's whining. Nope, she's not calming down quite just yet.


"Oh — GEEZ — "

This is Steve suddenly breaking his stance due to the feeling akin to a heat-warmed microfiber cloth sliding about on his skin. Yes, the dragon tattoo is absolutely moving in response to the concern over Bella being out and about and sticking her nose in places it ought not to go. He wiggles in place once as if someone had run an ice cube down his back before he gains control over himself by dint of willpower.

Hopefully Koa doesn't get bumped into accidentally during this process.

"That's May?!" Wheat-gold eyebrows nearly crawl into his hairline. "…every time I think I've seen it all," the Captain mumbles as he crouches down to peer underneath the couch.

"May, it's Captain Rogers — Steve. That's Barnes reaching for you, it's alright. We'll get the wolf figured out here shortly."

Keiko gets a pointed look as Steve ends up rested on one knee by the couch.


"Sorry, ma'am," Buck says, with a complete lack of anything like actual contrition. She can totally fight, he can't blame her. But it doesn't stop him from scruffing her, gently, and starting to haul her out from under. She's not an actual flerken, right? So he's in no danger. "Hey, peanut gallery, step back, please," he asks. Yep, still put upon.


"It's not my fault." Keiko grumbles in response to Steve's pointed look. "Bella… "

The wolf yelps loudly as she's swatted, takes a few steps back and rolls on her back, tongue lolling to the side. "You bloody traitor…" the spirit caller mutters again.

At least there's room to get the cat out, right?

"I didn't know that May was a shapeshifter."


"It's not in her file." The senior WAND agent says. Koa grabs Bella by the scruff and hauls her back until Keiko can get her back where she belongs. If she decides to do that. At least someone has positive control of the dog now.

"Okay. Let me think. She has to have been exposed to something. Does anyone have any catnip to- wait no that's a terrible idea."

He pauses and looks at Steve and Bucky. "Alright. Keiko and I are going to have to research this. Do you two happen to want a cat?"

Sorry May. But he's sure they're perfectly responsible pet-senior-agent-owners.


Tortie-May is effectively scruffed, and she is very audibly NOT happy about it. But, Bucky is able to pull her out from under the loveseat as there's no carpeting in this office for her to latch onto.

Once she's completely out and exposed to all of the noise and smells, she hooks her claws into the nearest fabric she can reach, which is probably the front of Bucky's shirt. With her ears flat against her head and her tail lashing in clear agitation, she hisses at her would-be rescuer. That's gratitude for you.


Steve himself rises and takes a few steps back from the couch to allow for cat-extrication to occur. He eyes the uncomfortably-bristling May and then glances from Bucky and to the others.

"Dunno that May would be comfortable at our place right now. We're still cleaning up from dealing with the whole werewolf escapade 'nd the place smells like dog in places." Mostly the master bedroom, but Steve has been cleaning like a fiend as best he can. "That, 'nd I'd rather FUBAR and SNAFU remain safe."

These two creatures being the googly-eyed goldfish much beloved in their showroom tank.

"Doesn't mean we won't help as we can," the Captain is sure to add with a firm nod.


Bucky sort of bundles her up in his arm. Oh, he gets clawed a little. There goes his shirt. "Yeah, I've …..we have fish," he agrees. "She wouldn't be able to leave 'em alone. Hell, there's gotta be somewhere here safe, right? I mean, we can just go out and get her a litter box and some cat chow….."


"Don't hurt her. She's upset." Keiko mutters, crouching down to wrap her arms about Bella's neck for a moment. "You have to go away, girl. I'll take you for a run tonight, I promise…" she murmurs, yellow eyes looking at the tortie as it emerges from beneath the couch. "That collar looks familiar, Koa…" she says with a tilt of her head.

"She can't stay here, she'll be lonely." she sighs. "She could stay with me tonight. Piotr won't be happy but Elena might like it."


"Oh yeah. That could in no way go wrong." Koa mutters. But it IS probably the best available option right now. "Ugh. She's going to need flea treatment." No good getting May back to normal if she's deathly ill because she has cat plague or something like that.

The Agent rubs his face and eyes the collar. "Yes it does doesn't it…" He snaps. "Bezas. That damn little…" He sighs and shakes his head. "Okay. We need to report this to the Director. And he's not really going to believe this so… guess who gets to come with me to do that?"

Yes. You May. Maybe Fury will find you adorable.

"We'll get something set up, Steve and Buck, no worries. Could you guys maybe stop by a pet supply store though? May's gonna need a few things that we don't have just laying around."


Transferring the still very displeased Tortie-May from Bucky's grasp to Koa's is NOT easy or quick, but it's doable, even if she does claw any and all involved at least once or twice, and makes all the unhappy noises. Oh, hey, bundling her up in the jacket from the floor actually seems to get her to calm the quickest and has the added bonus of protecting people from her claws. There's still an orange and black tail lashing visibly regardless.

Being enveloped in the familiar smells of the jacket does actually help May's mind settle, even if she is still extremely annoyed. But she's now able to rein in the feline instinctual urges to lash out and carry on loudly.

That doesn't stop the tail, though. That thing has a mind of its own.


"Yep, we'll go get the supplies. What, we'll need…" Bucky is eyed again, but as a point of reference for cat ownership — for some reason. "Food, treats, toys, litter box, litter pan…the basics." Steve pulls back in his hand, having extended a finger for each item he listed off.

"We'll be as quick as we can about it too." May's swishing tail is observed with a mild sense of bemusement. "Hopefully they have some stuff that's near to human food. I wasn't about to eat dog chow when I was dealing with my issue."

And there's still about forty pounds of frozen beef in the freezer to contend with, one way or another.

Spaghetti sauce for daaaaaaaaays!


The mention of food 'near to human food' seems to elicit a low growl from the lashing-tail jacket bundle.


"Well… do you want to give her to me then …" Keiko's used to getting clawed up by her spirits. What's one more animal to do that? Bella dissipates to smoke, the tattoo reforming on her arm as it settles there.

Taking the tortie-May from the other two, the spirit caller sighs. "Want to take us to Director Fury's office, Koa?" It's not like they had other things to do today, is it?


Koa does in fact want to give May to Keiko. So he does. It leaves his hands free for wonderful things like still having skin on them. "Yeah, let's head up to the Director. Cap, Bucky, I'll have someone get in touch." This will be resolved quickly, right?

He gets the feeling that like most things involving cats, it's not gonna be that simple.


Steve again nods curtly, apparently ready to lend whatever hand he can. "You've got my number, feel free to contact me," he replies to Koa in particular. Keiko gets a half-smile even as the Captain reaches to rub at his ribs, as if he'd felt the dragon tattoo shift in place slightly yet again.

"'nd I'll keep you updated on your dragon, Agent Kurita. It's safe with me."

It comes out in the open now well and good. Steve pointedly does not look over at Bucky for a few moments, half-certain he's the recipient of A Look drilled right into his perfect cheekbone.


The bundle of jacket with an angry tail that is Tortie-May at the moment protests being handed off by struggling briefly, but the fabric of the garment was built to turn a knife blade. Angry cat doesn't stand a chance. May seems to realize it quickly enough and settles again though offers another low growl to share her opinion of the matter.

The restraint isn't entirely pleasant, but the dark and the familiar smells, along with how the overwhelming noises are now all muffled is going a log way to calming her down. And as she calms her rational mind is able to work a few things out. Like who all is around her — yes, that must be Steve, he still smells like wet dog — and what they're talking about.

Fury will never let her live this down.


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