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“… okay, I’m going to admit, that’s a little strange,” Tony said, stopping in the doorway to his workshop. “Where the hell did you come from, little guy?”
The one on the receiving end of his confusion, a mid-sized black cat sitting quite primly on Tony’s usual stool, blinked at him slowly, tail flicking over his toes. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t deign to give an answer. Or maybe it wasn’t that unsurprising. If a cat decided to start talking to him, it wouldn’t have even been the strangest thing which had happened that week, and Tony had been learning lately to be a little more suspicious than usual about cats – and things which looked like cats.
The cat on his stool didn’t seem to be in any great hurry to offer an explanation, however, so Tony approached carefully.
He was a sleek little beast, with startling green eyes and longish coat, giving him a fluffy sort of tail. He was friendly, too, accepting Tony’s petting and experimental ear rubs.
“So when did someone decide to get a cat?” he wondered aloud. “You must belong to someone here, or you wouldn’t have gotten in. Or do security measures not apply to felines?”
The cat opened his eyes long enough to give him a slight trill, as though answering the question directly. The look in his eyes only backed up the impression, and Tony had to laugh.
“Yeah, I guess that’s kind of a safe assumption when it comes to cats, huh? Alright. But just in case, we’re going to play it safe. JARVIS? You mind running a scan over the Tower, make sure there aren’t any major breaches in the perimeter?”
“Of course, Sir.”
It turned out there weren’t any breaches which JARVIS could find, which to Tony’s mind meant that there were none at all. He’d double check it later, but he trusted JARVIS’ ability to detect anything off kilter enough to let it go for the time being. For now, he’d assume that the cat which had wound up in his workshop had come in with someone, and then wandered away.
“Alright, buddy, I guess you’re with me for the day. Or until you decide that you don’t like the loud noises in here.”
He’d expected the cat to run off almost as soon as he fired up any of his machines and got to work, but he didn’t so much as blink. The cat seemed completely unfazed by all of the noise and bright lights going on in the shop, which… seemed odd to Tony. But he’d never had a cat before, so that might have been normal? Cats were usually scared of vacuum cleaners, weren’t they? It seemed like a reasonable assumption to think that this one would be at least nervous in the shop.
But he wasn’t. In fact, as soon as Tony settled into something which was a little more sedentary, the cat made a heart-stopping leap for Tony’s shoulders and curled up around his neck like a fluffy scarf.
“I see,” he said once his soul was no longer trying to leave his body. “You think you’re a pirate’s parrot, huh? Gotta be up where you can see everything going on.”
In response the cat let out a sleepy sounding meow, which… may have melted his heart. Just a little bit. The cat’s whiskers tickled at his cheek, the fluff from his tail twitching against his collar, and the weight and warmth around his shoulders was surprisingly comforting. With a chuckle, Tony scratched round the cat’s ears, prompting a deep, contented purr.
“Just don’t fall, okay?”
The tail twitched against his chest, and then settled.
Wherever the cat had come from, he was either very familiar with how to stay on someone’s shoulders without sliding off, or he was just a natural. Being on Tony’s shoulders seemed to be exactly where the cat wanted to be, and he didn’t falter once the whole time he was there, no matter what Tony did.
He didn’t even slip – or seem to care, really – when Tony finally stood up to go upstairs and find some food. He’d nearly forgotten that he even had a cat around his shoulders until he got to the kitchen.
“Nice scarf, Tony.”
At Clint’s comment, Bruce and Thor both looked up from where they had been eating, their heads bent together as they discussed something or other. They’d actually been doing that a lot, lately. Apparently having been out in deep space once had been enough to spark Bruce’s interest in the field, and Thor was quite knowledgeable in that area. It was a little weird to have Thor be in on the science talks, but nice that Bruce was interacting more with the other members of the team.
Bruce’s brows rose at sight of Tony, and more to the point, sight of what was wrapped around his shoulders. Clint just looked blank, and Thor’s face had broken into a small grin. It’d figure the big guy liked cats.
“Thanks,” he said, stroking the little furry head on his shoulder. “You wouldn’t happen to know where he came from, would you? I found him in the workshop, probably there to paw through the super-secret blueprints.”
“I’m sure he would respect your privacy on that matter, Stark,” Thor said, mock-seriously.
“Mystery cat, huh?” Bruce pushed up his glasses, and reached out to pet the cat’s head. He didn’t seem quite as interested in the pets coming from Bruce, but he still purred. “Kind of strange. Did you ask anyone else about him? Maybe Peter picked him up on a patrol and brought him back as a surprise.”
“That… does sound like something he would do, yeah,” Tony admitted. “But no, I haven’t asked anyone else about him.”
“Picking up stray cats also sounds like something you would do, Tony,” Clint pointed out.
Thor looked as though he were holding back his laughter only through valiant effort. Tony snorted. “Yes, it does. It’s how I ended up with a Tower full of smartasses. So I take it you don’t know anything about him, either?”
Clint shook his head, only smiling at Tony’s accusation of being a stray which he’d picked up and brought home.
When he looked over at Thor, the man’s lips were still twitching.
“What about you, Point Break? You ever see this cat before? Assuming it is a cat,” he added, remembering to be cautious on that point.
Thor choked a little on his stifled laughter, and it looked as though he were about to answer when the cat gave a loud, annoyed sounding meow. It made Thor stop and look at the feline, still with a wide grin in place, but with an expression which seemed to be saying ‘Oh really?’
“No, Stark,” he said eventually, laughter still laced through his words. “I’m afraid I can’t confirm that for you.”
It didn’t occur to him until much, much later to question which of his two questions Thor couldn’t confirm.
It wasn’t until he was settling in for the night, stripping down to boxers and tank and turning down the blankets that he thought to question very much at all. The cat had stuck with him all day, with not a single person able to say that they knew the cat, or where he had come from. Though Peter had gushed a little over him, giving the fluffy thing the petting of his life, going from the deep, loud purring the attention had earned. But even Peter hadn’t admitted to knowing where the cat had come from.
As Tony was getting ready for bed, he started going through all of the supplies he would need to get in order to keep a cat, since the animal seemed quite determined to stay. There would be a few things he would need, and the cat would probably need things like shots and microchipping if he was going to stay…
He crawled into bed, and the cat – still nameless, that would have to change, too – jumped right up with him. He was still deciding if this was something he wanted to encourage or discourage as the cat, showing absolutely zero fear or manners, trotted right up to him and gave Tony a friendly head butt.
Tony laughed. “Brazen, aren’t you? I guess that’s to be expected with cats.”
Without thinking, Tony gave the cat a small smooch on his fuzzy forehead.
The cat blinked at him, and in the instant between the green eyes closing and them opening again, Tony was suddenly looking at Loki lying next to him, a pleased smile which was very reminiscent of the cat’s expression painted over his features.
“My prince,” he purred in Tony’s shocked face. “Saving me from my transformation with a kiss.”
Tony huffed out a laugh, the shock wearing off quickly. “Aren’t you meant to be the prince around here?”
“Mm, perhaps,” Loki said, scooting closer to Tony. “But I think you fill the role rather well.”
“Hmph.” Tony flopped down on the bed, so both of them were stretched out next to one another, and stared directly into Loki’s eyes. How had he missed that the cat’s eyes were exactly the same color?
“I was wondering where it was you’d gone all day.”
“Were you worried that I would leave you to your own devices, even for a day?” Loki teased, brushing his fingers across Tony’s cheek in a gesture suspiciously similar to the way Tony had been petting Loki-cat all day.
“Maybe.” Tony smiled. “You never know how much trouble I might get into when I’m left to my own devices.”
“True. Though I daresay we can get into much more trouble when we’re together.”
“A good thing you were never very far away, then, isn’t it?”
Loki laughed, and that same ease which Tony had felt all day with the weight of Loki in cat form across his shoulders settled over him again.
They curled up around each other on the bed, settling into sleep, and if Tony happened to stroke Loki’s hair as they drifted to sleep, neither of them drew attention to it.