The Witch's Familiar

Chapter 2

 "No,"

"Mrow!"

"Lokitty, no, you can't come with me,"

"Mrow!!"

"You're being a brat," you informed the cat who was trying again to climb into your arms so you would take him with you. "You can't come with me. I'm going to Stark Industries to help Tony and Pepper with something. You don't even like Tony. I'll come play with you after I help them," you reassured him and scratched behind his ears. You made sure he was set up with his comfy pillow, a few books to choose from, plenty of tea and food. You held your arm out, your hand open and waiting in a pose that Thor took often when he was summoning Mjolnir. Your broomstick flew to your hand in much the same manner. Loki watched, clearly interested. "No, it's not really like Mjolnir. It's an enchanted broom, others can ride it too, but I have to give them permission first, elsewise, it's just a broom."

You said goodbye to Lokitty again and, broomstick over your shoulder, you took the elevator up to the flight deck. You didn't feel like teleporting, plus the press and fans got a kick out of seeing you fly as much as they did Ironman and Thor. You mounted your broom and kicked off hard, delighted as ever at the rush of wind in your hair as you took to the skies. You dove toward the ground, pulling out of the dive just above traffic and flew to Stark Industries, letting people get a good look at you in your trademark black witch's hat and black Harry Potter style cloak that the movies called 'robes' that you wore over your normal clothes.

It didn't take long to fly to Stark Industries and you left your broom on Happy's security desk when you got there. "Miss Potts is in her office," Happy told you as he set your broom behind his desk carefully.

"Thanks, Happy," you told him as you breezed passed security. People nodded greetings to you as you passed them in the halls. You were well known around here, especially when you were wearing your hat and robes.

"Hey, Pepper. Did you get the potion I sent?" you asked as you entered Pepper's office.

She smiled. "Yes. I also got the video of Tony drinking it. Thanks for that," she added with a laugh. You sat in the chair she offered and you spent a little while catching up over tea. And watching the video of Tony losing his hair.

"Stark said you needed help with something?" you finally asked.

She laughed again. "He needs help in the lab and didn't want to ask himself," she replied. You rolled your eyes, but were laughing when you left her to go find out what Tony needed.

It took you, Bruce, Tony, and a brief appearance by the Hulk to fix the damage Tony had done to the arc reactor cooling system.

*

You staggered back into the tower after the long draining day and set your broom next to the elevator on the launch deck, there was a little stand set up there especially for it. Despite the fact that you were disgusting, covered in grease, oil, coolant, and rubble from the day's activities, your first stop was the living room. "Lokitty?" you asked, surprised when he didn't come running up to you. He'd seemed so sad when you left that morning. You saw that he was missing from his comfy pillow on your couch. It looked like the tea and food hadn't been touched either. "Lokitty?" you asked again more loudly, but there was no sign of the black cat. Apparently he hadn't missed you as much as you thought he would. He'd complained awfully hard earlier, but maybe he was just being an indignant cat.

Exhausted and drained from the amount of magic and physical effort Tony's project had taken, you headed up to your room to get a much needed shower.

You just stared in shock while tears came to your eyes when you opened your bedroom door. Every single object in your room was destroyed, shredded by tiny cat claws and teeth. Your books had been torn to pieces, clothes, blankets, stuffed animals, everything. You knew it was tiny cat claws when you saw the tiny cat in the middle of the chaos, laying in a pile of cloth that looked like it used to be your blanket. He looked smug and proud of himself.