velithya: (FATALITY [Sol])
velithya ([personal profile] velithya) wrote in [community profile] cap_ironman2008-07-11 05:52 pm
Entry tags:

Fic: Momentary Paws (or, DO NOT WANT) 3/5

Apologies for the slight delay with this part, I've come down with the plague *makes face*

Title: Momentary Paws (or, DO NOT WANT) 3/5
Author: [livejournal.com profile] velithya
Rating: R
Pairing: Steve/Tony (preslash)
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Marvel. I'm just playing in their sandbox.
Summary: WTF KITTEN
Word Count: 16,831 total, 2539 this section
Previously: Part 1 | Part 2


Momentary Paws (or, DO NOT WANT)
Part 3


Tony is in the garage when the news comes on. He doesn't normally pay attention, but this whole thing where he's a kitten means that while he can design specs as much as he wants, he can't actually construct anything worth a damn, and it's starting to frustrate him. He probably shouldn't have come down here at all, but after this morning's conversation with Steve, Tony thought he should give the man a break. He's certainly not hiding or anything, and the fact that he's put the garage into what is essentially a scaled-down version of a lock-down doesn't mean anything.

"-Avengers," he catches out of the corner of his ear, and stops scowling at the specs for a kitten-sized hookup to fit inside his armour that he has no way to build, and anyway he's not going to be a kitten forever so it's not like he needs to think about adapting his armour to his current form, and he should be watching the TV now.

He ups the volume via Extremis and leaps across to the next workbench, closer to the screen. A middle-aged man is standing with a microphone on a sidewalk, lobster remains scattered across the road behind him.

"They arrived shortly after initial incursion, and were able to push the lobsters back to the river with no further casualties," the man says. "This footage, captured on cell phones earlier, shows some of the fight."

The screen cuts to a slightly blurred image of Steve throwing his shield at the lobster in front of him, Tony a tiny dark shape streaking away to a line of cars.

"For those of us not present at the fight," the man says, picture cutting back to him, "Captain America appears to have picked up a new sidekick."

Tony freezes on the workbench, staring, as the newscaster steps slightly to the side. "Derek Jones, a local resident who was in the area, witnessed the fight."

A second man steps into shot, the guy who'd tried to grab Tony back on the street. "Thanks, Tom," he says, and the newscaster nods.

"Why don't you tell us what happened, Derek?"

"I took my morning break in a diner across the street," Derek says, looking at the camera. "I was in there when the lobsters started coming down the street, and we all stayed inside, because it seemed safer that way."

He doesn't look nervous in front of the camera, and Tony hisses at the screen. "Asshole," he mutters.

"Captain America came down the street shortly afterwards," Derek continues. "He was pushing the lobsters back, and there was this tiny black kitten keeping pace with him on the parked cars. I didn't realise the kitten was with him, and I went out to try and bring her to safety."

"Wait," Tony says. "Wait, 'her'?"

"And that's when the kitten attacked you?" Tom the newscaster says, and Derek nods and lifts his wrists into view. They're covered with thin scratches, the largest across the back of his hand still raised and red.

"I tried to get her off the car," Derek says, "and she attacked me."

"You grabbed me!" Tony yowls at the screen. "I am not a girl!"

"And then what happened?" Tom asks.

"I dropped her and she ran right to Captain America," Derek says. "He told me to go back inside, and not to touch the kitten." He looks down at his wrists, then back up at the camera. "I was trying to help her," he says, eyes glimmering, and Tony sneers at the screen.

"Asshole," he says.

"Thanks Derek," Tom says, patting him on the shoulder, and turns to the camera. It zooms in, enough to take Derek out of the shot. "Another bystander caught these shots at the end of the fight," Tom says, and the screen shows a picture of the four of them talking, Tony perched on Steve's shoulder.

"These pictures seem to confirm that the kitten is attached to Captain America," Tom says, picture returning to him. "But is his choice of helper wise? The kitten has no collar, a violation of New York law, and seems badly trained, as Derek has attested. We can only ask, what is Captain America thinking?"

Tony switches off the TV in disgust, which is of course when Steve decides to call him on the communicator.

"Tony? You there?"

*Yeah,* Tony says wearily. *What is it?*

Steve sounds hesitant. "It's been a few hours," he says. "Are you-" He pauses, and then starts again. "Are you hungry?"

Now that he's mentioned it, Tony is hungry. Very hungry. *Yeah, a bit,* he says.

"If you come out of there I can get some food for you," Steve says.

*Okay,* Tony says, and then sighs. *Also, you'd better watch the news.*

Tony takes the garage out of the lockdown, noting that one Steve Rogers had tried to gain access three (3) times in the last hour, and has the elevator take him back up to the penthouse. When the doors open and he pads out, Steve is standing in front of the TV, scowling.

"I cannot believe what they will play as news," Steve mutters to himself, and Tony annouces his arrival by mrowing at him.

*They're saying I'm a law violation,* he says, twining around Steve's ankles. *A law violation!*

"Well they're right," Steve says, staying very still. "You don't have a collar."

Tony yowls his disgust, and Steve shrugs. "The cameras are going to be on you now," he says. "If you want to go outside, you're going to have to wear a collar."

Tony sits down in the middle of the floor and whines miserably. Steve crouches down next to him and gently scoops him up. "Look at it this way," he says. "It's just like when you wear a suit and tie for all those press conferences and board meetings you have."

Tony looks up at Steve with the saddest expression he can manage. "It's a collar," he whines, and Steve shakes his head and looks away.

"Your kitten eyes will not work on me," he says firmly, and stands to walk into the kitchen. "We can go to the pet store after you have something to eat."

***

The pet store has a variety of collars of different colours on hooks, arranged according to size. Tony puts a moratorium on anything orange, pink, or sparkling, and then tries on the rest of the collars in his size one by one. He eventually settles on a sleek black leather collar twice the price of everything else. The store owner has to put in extra holes in it so it will fit around his neck, but once that's done it's quite comfortable. Steve buys one of the little identity tags for him as well, a tiny round silver disc.

*I can engrave that back in the garage,* Tony says, and Steve turns down the owner's offer to engrave it for them.

Safely back in Stark Tower, Tony has Steve carry him to the garage where he spends five minutes programming one of the machines to engrave the disc for him.

*Okay, put it on the slot,* he says finally, Steve putting the disc down where indicated, and Tony starts the program.

The machine engraves "Avengers Tower, New York" on one side of the disc, and then flips it over.

"What are you going to put?" Steve asks, and Tony watches as the machine spells out 'STARK' on the other side.

*I certainly wasn't going with Peter's suggestions,* Tony says, the machine tipping the finished disc onto a plate to cool.

"I don't know," Steve says nonchalantly, "I thought 'Mister Fluffy' was a great name for a kitten-" and then bolts as Tony chases him across the lab.

***

It's MJ's turn to pick the film tonight, and she picks Kiss Me, Kate, an early 50s film that Tony had seen one night when he was working late in the garage. They squash onto the couches in their usual positions, which leaves Steve a couch to himself, Tony curled up on the empty seat next to Steve's leg.

He's mostly used to the collar by now, but it's tighter than he normally wears his suit ties and every so often he'll twitch his head to try and get rid of whatever is starting to choke him, tag clinking gently.

The fourth time he does it Steve sets his hand carefully on the nape of Tony's neck, scritching gently behind his ears. It works as a great distraction, actually, and Tony leans into the warmth of Steve's leg, stretching his head forward onto his paws. He can't really see the screen properly from this angle, but that's okay, he's seen the movie already. If he really wanted he could hack into the digital signal and watch it via Extremis, anyway.

Steve's fingers are soothing, and the heat is nice, and Tony lets his eyelids droop. He's not falling asleep, just resting, really. His ears work fine, though, which is why he hears Peter whisper softly (he assumes to MJ), "Hey, is Tony purring?"

He is, he realises, purring, kind of loudly, actually, and shakes himself free of Steve's hand, bolting off the couch and out of the room.

"Hey, Tony-" he hears Peter call from behind him and ignores it in favour of streaking down the hall and into his room. He leans against his door to close it, and it's only once the lock has clicked that he realises that he actually has no way of opening the door again.

"Goddammit," he swears, butting the door in frustration with his head, and then yowls in pain.

Footsteps come near the door, too heavy to be Peter, and Steve says over the comm "I'm going to open the door now."

Tony gets out of the way as the door swings open, huddling in on the carpet, and Steve comes through the gap and closes the door behind him, sitting down on the carpet next to him.

"I'll open the door anytime you want," he says softly. "I just thought you might not want other people hearing."

Tony mrows, embarrassed and depressed all at once. It wasn't his fault he was a kitten, but he was supposed to have better control over himself than this. He hadn't even realised he was-

"It's okay," Steve says. "You're a kitten, and kittens purr."

*It was not okay,* Tony says. *It was inappropriate and I shouldn't have.*

Steve pauses. "Inappropriate? How was it inappropriate?"

Tony is not answering that question truthfully, and maybe not at all, because then it would mean revealing to Steve that enjoying what Steve was doing to the extent that he has some sort of involuntary reaction like purring, for gods sake, was definitely inappropriate, and he'd been able to keep himself in check for the past several years just fine and just because he was a kitten didn't mean that he could just-

Tony stops, calms down. Steve is right here, and he had better give him some sort of answer. He's just not sure what to say.

"Look, it-" Steve says, maybe taking Tony's silence the wrong way. "I'm sorry for scritching you, it just seemed like your collar was annoying you and obviously you didn't want me to. I'm sorry."

*What?* Tony says. It's not Steve's fault, not at all. *No, no, you were fine. It's not your fault.*

"Then why are you hiding in here?" Steve asks, leaning back on his hands and looking at the ceiling. Tony takes a second to admire the long planes of his throat.

*Because-* Tony says. *Because I didn't realise I was purring and it was kind of embarrassing to have it drawn to my attention that way.*

"You know," Steve says, "Cats purr all the time. It just means you're happy."

And how, Tony thinks, and shakes his head. *It was embarrassing,* he says.

"I thought it was cute," Steve says.

"Cute?" Tony says, outraged, only it comes out tiny and kittenish, and Steve grins at him.

"Definitely cute," Steve says, and Tony sits bolt upright and glowers.

*I am not cute,* he says.

"Can I get that in writing?" Steve says. "Breaking news: Tony Stark says he's not cute."

*Oh, that's it,* Tony says, and leaps at Steve.

Steve's quicker than he's expecting, bringing both hands up fast to catch Tony before Tony can land on his face, and without their support falls back onto the carpet, laughing. Tony stalks down his chest to put his nose right in Steve's face.

*Say it,* Tony says.

Steve calms down and stops laughing, taking a breath. "You are definitely the cutest little kitten ever."

Tony yowls in frustration as Steve starts laughing again. It's okay, though, because Steve laughing is one of the best sounds in the world, right up there with the armour forming around him and the coffeemaker beep that means his coffee is finished.

Steve thinks he's cute.

***

They don't go back and finish the movie with the others; Steve says he's tired and Tony's had an... eventful day, also he's a kitten and he gets tired pretty easily. Steve just carries him back to his room and puts him in the bathroom while Steve gets changed out in the main room, then when Tony's done Tony makes himself comfortable on his chair while Steve uses the bathroom.

Steve leaves the door open a crack for Tony, in case he wants to move around, and slides into bed, shifting around a bit before he stills. There's a moment of silence, Tony aware of Steve breathing and the fact that they're both still awake, listening.

"Tony," Steve says, softly. "If you want, you can." He stops, and Tony sits up.

*Steve?*

"I noticed last night, you, uh. Moved over here in the middle of the night."

Tony's not sure if kittens can blush, but his face feels hot anyway. *Um, I was just-* He thought he'd woken up before Steve, and avoided him noticing, but apparently that's not the case. He's not really sure what to say, but thankfully Steve cuts him off.

"It's okay, I didn't mind," Steve says. "I know this. Hasn't been easy for you. If it's more comfortable for you over here, that's okay."

*Are you sure?* Tony says doubtfully. He really wants to take Steve up on his offer, but he doesn't want Steve to be offering out of a sense of obligation. *Kittens are kind of heavy.*

"I'm sure," Steve says. "If I minded I would have said something last night. Also, you really aren't that heavy."

*If you're going to segue into one of your 'you should eat more' conversations,* Tony says, leaping onto Steve's bed, *you can stop right there.*

"You're eating your own weight in kitten food every day," Steve says. "I wouldn't dream of-"

Tony mrows at him, and Steve stops, grinning. "Hurry up and get up here," he says.

Tony steps carefully up onto his chest, curling up into a ball. Steve's fingers brush over his head a second later, his scent familiar and safe.

"'Night, Tony," he says, softly, and Tony mrows quietly in response.


| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |

ext_52640: (Default)

[identity profile] ailette.livejournal.com 2008-07-11 02:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I really enjoy reading this. It's fun and makes me go "Aww!" every other paragraph, which is a good sign.

My favourite bit has to be Tony chasing Steve. XD And when you mentioned the collar? I totally imagined Steve getting him one of these red, white and blue ones with the tag saying "Property of Steve Rogers".