7761/What the Cat drags in.

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What the Cat drags in.
Date of Scene: 06 June 2019
Location: Sanctum Santorum - Base Floor
Synopsis: Summary needed
Cast of Characters: Doctor Strange, Black Cat




Doctor Strange has posed:
    "No, the table is fine as it is." Stephen says before leaning back into his chair and looking up towards Felicia's stunning green eyes once more. Stephen even lifts his leg to cross over his other and his toe begins to tap against the air idly as he crosses his arms and leans back in the metal chair set out on the roof of the sanctum.

    The mystical sphere around the place allows none of the light pollution into the brownstone and so Stephen and Felicia can see the milky way in all it's glory over head of the skyline of New York City. Stephen's face is in that stoic disapproving stare that he mastered during his residencey. "What did you bring to my house this time Felicia?"

Black Cat has posed:
Stoic disapproving stare, meet honey-sweet curl of lips, soft as a moonbeam, red as a rose, full of guile and feminine knowledge of all aspects of herself. Felicia, dressed warmly in her cream-colored sweater-dress that curves to her frame and sports a brown belt to match her knee-high boots (beneath of which are ivory bootliners, folded over the footwears' brims), has her hands behind her back still.

"I found it and I thought you might be able to tell me what it is. It was tucked up against a heating vent over in Brooklyn." She lifts one foot to taptap her boot-toe on the roof innocently despite the appearance of nothing but trouble. "Curiosity got the better of me, Copperfield - and I mean..."

One hand appears and she considers her manicure, pouting her lips before looking at him through her dark lashes in a sultry manner. "You are the Sorcerer Supreme. You know more than anyone else in the whole world about magic. Who else was I supposed to show?"

Doctor Strange has posed:
    STephen's nonplused face remains as such as he balances on the back to legs of his chair with his own foot on the ground. "So, what you're telling me, my darling lover, is that you took something from someone's house because you were not only curious, but because I am a powerful wizard, you couldn't help yourself from taking someone's heirloom?"

    Stephen then asks, "Is that what you're telling me? I think that's what you're telling me." The wizard asks before he keeps that look aimed at the softness of Felicia's features. Then slowly he holds out his left hand expecting Felicia to put the item in it.

Black Cat has posed:
"Copperfield, tsk." Felicia frowns at him. "You're not listening: I found in next to a heating vent. Those are on the roof." A soft hmph escapes her as she look down at him, balanced in the seating as he is. "Besides, this?"

She holds out what it is and adds as she cups both hands beneath it to keep it safe, "This isn't an heirloom. I know heirlooms."

It's an egg, opaque as beach glass, not much smaller than one that might be laid by an ostrich. Its color is mottled in browns and greys with a spectacular smattering of safety-orange, bright and eye-catching to the spectrum of vision in mortals. Inside, one can see...something? Maybe something? Or maybe it's the starlight falling at an odd angle.

"So what's in it?" Can't keep a curious Cat down.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen's eyes widen at the crystal like orb presented by Felicia and he even drops his mouth open at it. "You found this... In brooklyn... on a roof..." Stephen repeats as he lifts up his other hand to take the egg from Felicia. He leans forward, letting all six legs sit on the room as he has to divert all his attention to the finding Felicia has made. "I'm, I'm not sure, but it's wildly magical."

    Stephen again looks back up to Felicia and stands up from his chair to hold it up towards the star light, allowing it to pass through where it can. "I'm going to have to read up on this..." The wizard notes.

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia watches the ambient light from above fall through the egg. It's pretty in a delicate way, even if it felt very sturdy in her hands and traveled well in her satchel, next to the warmth of her body.

She claps her hands together before her chest and grins, pleased with herself for bringing something of interest into the Sorcerer's day. "Let's go read up then! I want to know what I found!" Stepping into place beside Stephen, she hooks her arm around his elbow, prepared to follow him wherever he might go for further research. Her perfume blooms around her, sweet and warm, vanilla and amber-caramel locked into the fall of her platinum-blonde hair about her shoulders.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen looks down to the girl as she seems pleased with herself and then he cracks a hint of a smile before lowering the egg back down from the light of a billion suns and hands it back towards Felicia. "You found it. It's your egg." Stephen says before the two of them are instantly in one of the many libraries.

    "Hmmm, Eggs. glass or crystal eggs." Stephen muses to himself as he starts to lift loose leaf papers and even checks out a scroll or two as he looks under them for tomes and books older than some continents. "Do you know what a phoenix is?" Stephen asks as he fingers through more and more writings.

Black Cat has posed:
"Oh!" Felicia is surprised and, deep inside, pleased that the egg was returned to her. She has time to tuck it safely into the crook of her unoccupied arm next to her ribs before the roof is no longer the roof. A hard blink and she takes a moment to fix her hair as she composes herself where she stands in the library. Woof -- those reality shifts are still startling.

Meandering over to Stephen's side, she leans in and around his reaching arms to observe the old documents and tomes sprawled out. "I've heard of them. Fire birds, right? I mean, there's that Harry Potter series. I thought the head-boss guy of the school had one. Dingledore. No, not that. Dimpledork?" Felicia pauses. "Dumbledore, right," she remembers with a snap of her fingers. She glances at the glassy egg. "It's a phoenix? I mean, birds are okay..." A shrug definitely drives the point home that the Cat is mundane and not magical.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Yes but no. And... very no. Felicia, do you need to borrow my books again?" Stephen asks as he stops looking at the pages to look towards Felicia with concern in his eyes and forcing his eyebrows to slide towards each other.

    "AH! Here!" Stephen pulls out a large book. Not thick, but it's pages are twice the normal size so he sets it down on the table on top of other books and pages and thoomp he opens it. A finger dances across some strange symbols and script. Not anything seen by a human in milenia. "This is LIKE that, but unconfirmed as human's haven't seen one." Stephen then flips several pages with WHOOSHES from the large sheets and he points at a drawing on it. It's a brilliant blue and white, crackling with living ink it seems, a bolt of lightning in the shape of a cat. A predator. It's closely considered to be a cheetah but it's not quite the same but the proportions are the closest to that of the cat. "That."

Black Cat has posed:
Leaning back at the sudden fluster of pages and papers, Felicia clutches the egg to her chest now as if she risked dropping it. A few blinks and she stares at the drawing, her pale brows coming together in the first inklings of concern.

"Wow, um...that looks...kind of scary. I mean, I like cats -- and I did before I took up the name," she adds, pointing at Stephen briefly to head off any teasing. "It looks like a cat, right? But all...electrified." Holding out the egg before herself, her frown deepens.

"But cats don't lay eggs...?" Now the cat-burglar's really perplexed.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "And birds aren't made of fire." Stephen says with a nod to Felicia with a shrug before he looks back to the page and keeps reading. "It's a cat made of purely lightning or electricity, the words don't quite translate perfectly. It can take other shapes. It's like a galactic or universal equivalent to the phoenix, so the author theorizes." Stephen says as he reaches the end of the page and starts to flip it over but stops, "That's all there is." Stephen says with a frown that's aimed at Felicia. "It's not a mammal persay anyways, so who's to say it wouldn't lay eggs to reproduce." Stephen shrugs his broad shoulders.

Black Cat has posed:
"A...lightning cat that lays eggs." The blonde can be seen to mouth to herself a few more times, as if tempted to say something further in disbelief, but finally, she just stares down at the egg in her hand. Within the glassy shell, the smallest flickering of light appears, like webbing through a veil of thick stormcloud.

"Um. I should probably put this back, right?" She gives Stephen a grimace now.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "If you want it to die." Stephen says, closing the book with a gust of wind from the action before he sets it back on a shelf and turns towards Felicia. He steps up to lay his hands agaisnt the backs of hers while holding the thing. "It must be like any other egg. It likely needs warmth and care to hatch." The wizard says with a soft frown to Felicia. "Is that the kind of fate you'd leave a helpless animal to? To freeze to death before it can be born." Stephen cuts to the quick and aims to tug at Felicia's heart strings of sympathy.

Black Cat has posed:
"Well, no!!!!" The egg is clutched against her chest again, firmly wrapped in her arms. It doesn't crack or dimple, proof of how sturdy the shell is. "I don't want it to die! I'm not a monster!" Felicia squints up at him, her jade-green eyes flinty-sharp. The expression softens when she glances down at the egg in her hands.

"How in the heck am I going to do all that though, Copperfield? I've got a job -- places to be -- things to borrow. I mean, what's that thing called...for chicken eggs. An incubator." She gives him a beseeching look. "Do you have something like that?"

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Are you asking if I have an incubator for a magical lightning cat laying around?" Stephen asks with a stoic look to Felicia, and he simply blinks his actual response, once, twice, three, five times.

    "I think I have an idea though." Stephen says, reaching out his hands towards the egg as if he was asking Felicia to give it to him but he's not being forceful about it.

Black Cat has posed:
"Well, //yes//, Stephen," the woman says followed by a sigh. "You have this amazing ability to have almost anything possible in the entire world. It's like impossible doesn't exist in your vocabulary." She then carefully hands off the egg to him. "Don't drop it." The comment's likely unnecessary given she trusts the man with just about everything in her life.

Bereft of the supernatural egg, Felicia tucks her hands up against her chest again and watches him, concern in her luminous green eyes.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen's hands hold onto the egg rather gracefully as he starts to float into the air and a crackle of energy being consumed whooshes around the sorcerer. He then starts to pull the egg closer and closer towards himself, as if he was starting to pull it into his self.

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia takes a few steps back from the man after he leaves the floor. She knows better now than to be close to him when he's executing some form of incantation and, inside, she's still afraid Stephen has figured out just how much bad luck she is.

However, she can be seen to suddenly straighten and gasp. Her voice flies up the registers into something dismayed. "Wait, Stephen -- wait, you don't -- what are you -- STEPHEN, WHAT -- ?!" A knee-jerk reaction of reaching for him is aborted with effort and she merely stands there, owl-eyed, hands over her mouth.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Someone has to incubate it. We don't know what it will do when it hatches. It could imprint on me, or the first person it sees, or it could cause me to explode, or it could annihilate the earth. I'm the easy choice Felicia." Stephen says with a bead of sweat dripping down his forehead and he finishes pushing the thing into his abdomen. "Guess we'll find out."

Black Cat has posed:
The thin whispery sound is like a tea kettle leaking -- but it's Felicia, making a continuous exhale of shock. Her hands curl into fists before her mouth and then the ability to communicate in English seems to come online in her brain again.

"You -- YOU -- " Stamping over, the Cat presumes to grab at the Sorcerer's blue gi and start pulling at it, as if she might rip it away and get back the egg that's apparently now somewhere in his body. "No! You don't get to do that! You give it back!!!" Her voice echoes in the room, fracturing in places. "STOP IT! You're not some -- some -- NO! STOP BEING A MARTYR! You're mine, you don't -- you don't get to decide to just explode!!!" Now she sounds as if she's trying not to start weeping, her teeth gritted as she assumes to shake him.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen is many things but one thing he's not, is phsycially strong. No. Just that one time. But don't worry about that. He is no where close to being on par with Felicia, so when she goes after the sorcerer he doesn't try to stop her. Not her. His gi is torn at the shoulders and the seams aren't able to handle Felicia's fury.

    Stephen tries to put his hands up to brace her and himself with her shoulders, or arms or anything he can hold onto. "Fel FEL! Stop!" He tries to wrap his arms around her in an embrace to hold the woman and calm her and protect himself, but if she wont have it, she wont have it. She could snap him in half, something he was surprised to learn a few nights ago. "I don't think I'm going to die..."

Black Cat has posed:
Checking herself once she realizes what she's done, torn seams and all, Felicia hiccups once and then exhales in a long, slow sound of a quiet sob. She then buries herself into his chest, arms around him tight without crushing, and shudders silently.

"I'm sorry, Stephen, I didn't mean to -- " she whispers as she appears again, trying to hard to fix the lapels of the now-damaged gi top. "I'm so sorry, I-I-I -- I can't -- you just, and you didn't ask me or anything! I care about you!" Her voice cracks as she stares up at him, eyes gone glassy with unshed tears. "You can't just go doing things like that! Things that might kill you!"

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "I don't know that it's going to do any of that." Stephen says, a few cuts on his chest from her grabbing but nothing really sore beyond that, not that he'll admit it. "I wasn't going to put it in you, so there was just one option left." Stephen says with a soft smile as he slowly releases Felicia from her hug and looks into her green eyes.

Black Cat has posed:
The idea of the egg being inside her -- with //her// being an incubator -- is enough to make Felicia splutter like...well, an irritated cat. She makes some more incoherent sounds of agitation while staring at him, mouth hang agape and awry, before she whiffles her hands before his chest. Loose fabric flies left and right like streamers in a few places and she glances down at them.

She catches sight of the red marks on his skin, showing in places where her nails caught accidentally. Her face goes a shade lighter until pink blotches on her cheeks. "...I'm so sorry," she breathes. With a rusty inhale and soft cry, the Cat turns on a dime. Quick as a flash, she heads for the library door and out into the hallway. Boots don't slow her down at least, apparently, not when she's in full flight mode. Each inhale saws over her palate as she sprints, headed for the grand staircase and eventually the front door. Guilt rides hard on her heels.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Fe- Felicia!" Stephen says, surprised as he finds his embrace broken and himself on his backside reaching up and out for the - damn she's fast - woman. "Where are you going?!" Stephen calls, concern tints his voice as he stands back up and runs towarwds the door just in time to see... she's gone.

    "What are you doing. Why are you running Felicia?" Then just in front of her in another hallway, the wizard appears, the cloak is on his back this time. He holds his injured hand up as to try and stop Felicia.

Black Cat has posed:
Through tear-blurred eyes, the cat-burglar sees the sudden appearance of a body in front of her, crimson Cloak and all. She slams on the brakes hard enough to leave a visible pair of distress lines on the floor in her boots and even bounces off one hip as she keeps herself from barreling into him. Scrambling to her feet again, Felicia stares at him with wide, panicked eyes.

"I //hurt// you! Let me go!" she forcefully whispers, the words kept from a shriek because her throat is too tight and painful for it. She crouches down, suddenly lithe and feral in the coiled stance, before she arcs up and over Stephen -- all 6'2" of him -- as if he were nothing that a low fenceline. Landing behind him on a roll through her shoulder, she then attempts to continue bolting down the hallway.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen gasps audibly as Felicia leaps OVER him and he falls backwards not wanting to get in her way and hurt her. The Cloak however does have a mind of its own, sort of, and it snaps up and off of Stephen's shoulders to try and grab Felicia in the air, but it whiffs past the thief as if she was a cat really and squirms around it's clothy grasp.

    Stephen on his bottom watches Felicia land and dart forwards but he cheats a touch and snaps out a spell with his left hand. Bands of liquid metal snake out of his torn gi sleeve and pierce through the air like orange tongues to try to grab Felicia by her hand, wrist, ankles, knees, waist, anywhere but her neck and or face.

Black Cat has posed:
She's just about to make it to the corner where the hallway opens up into the vaulting space of the foyer, grand staircase and all, when the first of the ropes wraps on her left wrist. In full run, the counter-movement of her limbs makes this the first point of landing. Felicia spins on the spot and gives the entire band a brutally-strong yank of purely panicked reaction, throwing herself backwards in the process.

"Lemme go lemme go lemme go lemme go!!!" Her frightened mantra continues as she lands and then tries to swat at the approaching tendrils as if to deflect them.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    The yank is enough to jerk Stephen hard enough that his arm pops but the pain is great enough his concentration is broken and the bands simply cease to exist. Stephen's left on his face on the floor and the Cloak zips down the hallway towards Felicia to catch the woman. "Felicia! I'm not trying to hurt you. I love you!" The wizard claims down the hall that the woman likely is to continue running down once she realizes the spell is broken.

Black Cat has posed:
In a blur of cream, the cat-burglar turns the corner. The words, however, stop her on a dime -- stop her so hard that she has to grab onto the bannister of the stairs to keep from tumbling head-over-heels down them. That would have hurt, after all. One fumbling backwards step and shudder of adrenaline-numbed limbs means there's more than enough time for the Cloak to hit her like a net.

"Oh -- GET -- NYARG -- " There's more than enough soft fabric to get those limbs under control. It seems like this lances some of the flight-mode from her system and now, snugly bundled, Felicia just sobs quietly. It breaks up her words.

"I'm sorry-hee-hee-hee...!!! I'm sorry-hee-hee! I'm just ba-hah-had luck and not - not - not worth it and I'm sorry-hee-hee..."

Doctor Strange has posed:
    The cloak picks Felicia and itself off the ground and floats through the hallway. Brushing part of the collar against her cheek as it seems to hug her but then the hug gets specifically tighter as Stephen's arms wrap around Felicia and the cloak then slips out from between the two and floats away quietly. "I love you Felicia..." Stephen says, no sign of pain in his voice though he doesn't feel great, he's more concered the platinum blonde wants to leave him.

Black Cat has posed:
Some women are blessed to be pretty criers. Felicia is not blessed in this -- she hates crying. Her cheeks are patchy with red, but hey: her mascara remains strong. Still, as she leans into the warmth of his body and into the hug that Stephen is giving her, little soft sobs continue escaping her.

"Why-hy?" Sniff. "Why do you love m-me? I'm nothing b-b-but trouble. I have ba-had luck for real, Copperfield," she grates, sneaking a hand between his chest and her face to wipe at her cheeks and sniffle hard. "Everywhere I -- " Hiccup. "I go, bad thing hap-p-ppen." Hiccup. "And I hurt y-you, that's -- " Hiccup hiccup. "It's bad and I'm a bad person." Back to quietly sobbing.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Bad people don't sit in a hallway and cry into the chest of men about how they're so bad." Stephen says, his hand ending against her hair and holding her to him. The touch of her warmth against his cuts doesn't feel great, but he ignores them and the sprained shoulder but again, those aren't important. Felicia is important. "I love you because you're you. You are a good person Felicia." Stephen states matter of factly as he sits in the floor holding and comforting the princess in his arms.

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia descends with him and somehow, she's managed to curl up in his lap with her knees tucked nearly to her chest. Her face is shoved into the crook of his neck and uninjured shoulders and she sniffles for a little bit longer, not answering him immediately. Then, she wipes at her face again and at her nose, sighing hard.

"I'm really a good person?"

The question is asked so quietly, so delicately, and the look she gives Stephen is raw -- open -- brittle -- indicative of a rare opening of true trust in no more emotional bruises.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Felicia, you don't need me to say it, you already know what you are." He then lifts his hand from her arm and presses it to her chest. "You know it here." Then he kisses her forehead. "And you know it here." Then Stephen breaks down and says it anyways. "You're not a good person. You're my favorite person."

Black Cat has posed:
The woman in his arms leans into the press of lips to her forehead. For some reason, it feels like a benediction -- same with the palm resting on her sternum, scarred as it is. For just a second, she hiccups in at hearing the negative, but then the Sorcerer further explains. Her shoulders slump and despite herself, she laughs.

Just a little.

Teeth bite at her red-red lip for a second before she sighs shakily and sniffs again. Her eyes rise up to his face. "I guess this makes you my favorite person too, Copperfield." She looks between his eyes, those eyes that can never pick a color and stick to it. "Stephen," she amends with a stupidly-fond and grateful smile growing on her face. "Stephen, you...you're nuts. But I love you too." She titters again and sniffs, smushing the back of her hand across her face. "I guess we're both nuts." More laughing, relieved.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Indeed Felicia. Indeed." Stephen says and with his arms around her he lays back onto the floor in such a way she ends up on top of him.

    He takes in a deep and labored breath. "Were you going to tell me?" Stephen asks cryptically with his face and eyes aimed up towards the ceiling of the hallway.

Black Cat has posed:
Sliding to one side so she's not hampering his breathing or lying on the deep scratch marks -- they still make her wince and her heart hurt -- Felicia looks down at him, her brows drawn together. Now her eyes are merely red-rimmed and some of the color has left her cheeks so she's not so mottled.

"Um..." Shifting her weight means resting most of it on his shoulder so she can still see his face in profile. Her knees tuck up against his ribs, ankles crossed in her boots.

"Tell you about how I love you...? Yes, I was, eventually..." she volunteers softly. Her eyes fall to the seam of the gi's shoulder where it's split to show his skin, unblemished here. "About the bad luck...I mean...it's literal bad luck. Like...a power that's attached to me. I can use it against people, but I don't like it when it affects the people I love." The explanation comes almost grudgingly and she blows a hard sigh at his neck.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen turns his head towards Felicia and a soft smile tugs at the shape of his goatee and he then shakes his head once. "Nope. None of that. Your bad luck isn't that worrysome, and you loving me is a shock to hear, but a wonderful one that I started to fear I'd never feel again." Stephen says with his eyes locked onto Felicia, he reaches his hand up to brush against her face and invite the woman to keep opening up. She's in the safest place she'll ever know. "I was wondering if you were going to tell me about your strength and everything else." Stephen whispers.

Black Cat has posed:
An inhale. "Oh." Felicia breathily laughs out the rest of her air and suddenly appears to be rather bashful. Her eyes drop and skitter to one side and her wrinkles her nose in that way that she does.

"It's...it's a secret because nobody looks at me and thinks that I'm strong," she begins, still looking at the baseboards of the hallway. "Everybody looks at me and thinks I'm just blonde or rich or shallow or some trophy-wife to take home. Nobody thinks I can...leap from building to building or swing around the city. Plus, I mean..." Again, guiltily, she indicates the scratches with a little nod of her head. "I can hurt people and most of the time, I don't mean to. People get scared when someone who looks like me can punch through a door if she wants. I want to keep the friends I have because...because I'm not good at friends. I'm good at blending into the hoity-toity crowds and fleecing people."

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "You're good at many more things Felicia." Stephen says finally sitting up and wincing slightly, looking away quickly as he does so and makes his way to his feet. "I'll have to learn to cope with the fact my girlfriend could beat me up in her sleep." Stephen says with a smirk and a wink to Felicia as he tries to help her up from the floor and his hand obviously not wanting to let go of hers.

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia at least gives the impression of gripping his hand, even though she's certain not to do so hard -- she's learned about the twinges of the surgical scars through enough accidental squeezes. Standing next to him, she brushes herself down with her free hand, as if dust were to linger on her cream-colored sweater dress. It doesn't. It all wasted time to gather her composure more.

"I'm not going to beat you up in your sleep," she grouses, though she does glance up at him wearing a puckish smile. "I'm good at hiding it. You had no idea until I showed you."

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "I learned the other night." Stephen says with a knowing kind of nod as he turns to stand in front of her and pull her to his chest and he lowers his lips to hers in a hungry, needy kind of kiss. He needs to vent some emotions, he needs to express his love physically. He needs her. He needs her to know how much he wants her in his life. "You don't have to hide anything from me Felicia." No secrets, but he will keep several from her, for herself and for his own sake.

Black Cat has posed:
"Oh, with the body swap." Felicia says this to herself in realization and nods. She lets out a soft 'eeep!' followed by a more quiet 'mmmmfff' at the deeply-enthralling kiss. In the Sorcerer's arms, she looks dozily up and him, eyelids gone heavy and lips hanging open slightly. He did stun her, just a little, with the intensity of the affection.

"Okay, Stephen, I won't," she promises, sounding dazed despite herself. It's still delightful to find the normally stoic man subject to such brilliant streaks of affection.