Work Text:
The elevator doors slid open, revealing a hooded figure, hunched over and wearing dark clothes. The figure shuffled out of the elevator, quite obviously trying to be quiet but being less than successful. Every few steps, they would stop, whip their head around to check for any approaching people, then continue on with their sneaking. By the time almost 5 minutes had passed, the figure had crossed the entirety of the living room and had almost made it to the hallway before they heard a soft sound coming from the kitchen area. Their head turned so fast, you could almost hear their neck cracking and popping. Tony was standing in the kitchen, mug of coffee still pulled up to his lips. He was leaned up against the counter, watching the figure cross the room incredulously. The figure quickly turned and tried to quickly tiptoe out of the room, still hunched over almost 90 degrees.
“Hey, Pete. Whatcha got there, kid?” he asked. The figure froze.
“....Nothing,” the voice emerged from the hoodie.
“Uh-huh, you sure about that?” Tony responded, a stupidly endeared look beginning to emerge on his face.
The figure, Peter, didn’t turn. He stood frozen, not three steps from the hallway that would provide a blessed escape from this conversation.
“Absolutely, there is nothing to hide, I have nothing to hide, what are you talking about?” he giggled nervously. Peter was inching toward the hall, taking steps the size of fingernails. He was almost home free, making his totally (not) believable excuses, when it happened.
His hoodie meowed.
Tony flinched a little. “Did you just… meow?”
“NO!” Peter yelped, accidentally squeezing his arms a little and causing the hoodie to meow again. He muttered a soft curse under his breath and cringed at the noise.
“Peter Benjamin Stark, Did You Bring A Cat Into My House Young Man?!” Tony asked, his voice not quite high enough to shatter glass but pretty damn close.
“....no” Peter responded.
“Turn around then,” Tony asked.
Very slowly, glacier-esque, the teenager turned around to face his father.
“How about you stand up straight, too?
Peter cringed, but did as asked, his arms cradling his midsection quite strangely.
Almost like he was holding something such as, oh, perhaps a cat?
Indeed it was a cat. The second Peter stood up straight, a lump in his hoodie moved, and a fluffy little yellow-orange-ish head popped out of his neckline. He hissed softly at the cat when it emerged.
“Felix, you were supposed to stay down! We talked about this!” he whisper-shouted at the poor thing. Tony could have sworn the cat rolled its eyes, but it was more than likely a sleep-deprived hallucination.
“Peter, no. We’re not keeping this random cat you dragged in from off the street," Tony sighed, already looking to the coffee pot longingly for a refill. Peter shuffled awkwardly, the cat still clutched in his arms now sniffing around his face.
“Technically, I dragged him in from the park down the block, not off the street,” Tony gave him a look, “But! I already have everything all planned out! He can stay in my room and you’ll never even have to see him and I promise I can take really good care of him!” Peter looked up at his dad with the biggest, saddest puppy dog eyes he had ever summoned before, and Tony could feel his resolve wavering like a piece of jello.
“Well, what about your dad, hm? That argument might work on me, but how will you convince him?” Now it was Peter’s turn to give Tony a look.
“You really think I’m gonna have to convince Papa to keep a cat? Are you sure we’re talking about the same person here?”
Touché.
“Point, but what about feeding him? Litter box?” Tony was looking for any reason to not keep the cat, but it was getting infinitely harder with the way Peter’s eyes seemed to be growing, and now the cat seems to have joined in on the puppy dog (kitty cat?) eyes. Phenomenal.
Peter, however, was Prepared. “His litter box can go in my bathroom, and he can share my food! You don’t even need to buy him other food!”
Tony sighed. He wasn’t getting out of this cat. “Kid, he can’t eat your food, you need to eat your food. Also, I’m pretty sure most people food is bad for cats.”
The eyes. They bored into his very soul at this point.
Oh well. “We can buy him his own food.” Peter’s whole face lit up. It was bright enough to potentially outshine the sun.
“YES!” he cheered. “THANK YOU~~~~~~~~~~~” he shot down the hallway, a blur of black disappearing in under three seconds. Tony blinked, turned and refilled his coffee cup.
Kids.
———————————————————————-
Surprisingly, he didn’t see Felix around a lot. James was, predictably, smitten with the tiny blond cat, and was absolutely no help in trying to curb Peter’s cat toy buying.
Felix was, admittedly, a very cute cat. No bigger than a shoebox, it was very common to miss him until he was right in front of you. They had taken him to the vet to get a checkup and some shots, and they’d been told that he was likely around 1-2 years old and done growing.
He didn’t make a whole lot of noise, but when he did it was always quite strange. The tiny cat had a ridiculously low and growly-sounding meow, so it was mildly disconcerting to hear low screeches in the middle of the night whenever the cat found the closet with the vacuum in it (that cat despises the vacuum). But overall, the cat was quite pleasant to be around. It was a common sight now to find James laid out on the couch with a book, the cat curled up and purring on his chest. Ever so often he would bring a hand down to scratch through Felix’s fur and give him little scritches behind the ears.
It was adorable.
But more often than not, the cat would be with Peter. It didn’t matter what the teen was doing, he almost always had his feline shadow with him. He snuck the cat snacks and treated him scarily like Felix was an actual child. When questioned, he responded with, “Dad, Felix is my Baby,” turned and left, Felix cradled in his arms and living the pampered life.
————————————————————————————
Tony was in his workshop, trying to fix a project that had quite literally blown up in his face.
It was not going well.
After about 6 hours of trying to figure the stupid thing out, he gave up and laid on his small couch to take a breather. He could feel the stress knotting through his back, his arms sore from nonstop work.
He was on the cusp of sleeping when he heard a slight rustle to his left. He dazedly dragged his head to glance in the correct direction and was met with a pair of round, round eyes colored a shocking pale blue.
“Ayo, what’up Felix,” he muttered tiredly. Felix stared at him, unblinking, for 11 seconds, then jumped up to the back to the couch. “Cool, nice seeing you too.” Tony closed his eyes.
There was a soft pressure on the back of his knee. It was very warm and small. Suddenly the pressure grew, and there was a whole cat climbing up his body as he was laying on the couch. Eventually, Felix stopped around his upper back. He stood there for a few seconds, contemplating, then Tony felt itty bitty footsteps walk in a couple circles before a warm weight settled on his back.
It was ridiculously nice.
Very comfortable. 11/10
With Felix napping on his back, Tony figured there was no way he could work on his project for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t worth the risk of disturbing the cat. Instead, he figured that a nap would be phenomenal right now. He’d figure out how Felix got in the lab later.
Maybe accepting Felix wasn’t too terrible of an idea.
