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“Are you serious?” Steve asked as the young, teenage girls motioned him into the alley beside their brownstone.
“So serious, Mr. Steve.”
The girls who lived down the block from him tried to assure him with their giggles and excitement. They couldn’t be more than thirteen, but they had always liked him so he didn’t feel like they would steer him wrong.
“It’s absolutely real, Mr. Steve. Do you want me to show you?” one of them offered. Steve was pretty sure her name was Emma and she was older than the other one or at least taller.
“Yeah, sure,” he said and motioned for them to go ahead of him. “Maybe both of you so we can stay on the up and up.”
Both girls hurried through their gate and ahead of him into the alley. Sure enough, behind the wooden gate they both knelt down at a green Rubbermaid tub.
“Our grandma cut a hole in it so it’s more secure than a cardboard box when it rains.”
“You know Bucky-“ Steve began and then backtracked. “You know Bucky, right? My- My partner?”
“Yes,” one of the girls said with a blush. It was the younger girl who had curly hair and freckles. “He calls you his better half when you’re not around, and then he calls you a punk when you’re with him.”
It was Steve’s turn to blush, but he appreciated the knowledge.
“Yeah? Don’t tell him you told me that, but thank you.”
The girls just giggled again as Steve peered down into the box.
A smoky grey and white cat barely acknowledged them as she licked one of her babies.
“She doesn’t mind you picking them up.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” Steve told them. “Don’t bother them. So you’re sure the family left?”
“Yeah,” one of the girls said quickly. It was the younger girl again and Steve wasn’t sure he had ever gotten her name. “They offered to let us have her when they were moving and our grandma said no, but then they left her anyway.”
“Then she had kittens,” Emma supplied.
“Of course she did,” Steve sighed. “That’s probably why they left her; they didn’t want kittens. That’s why we spay and neuter our animals, right girl?” he asked the cat. “So you don’t have to worry about these little guys.”
“Do you want a kitten when they get bigger?”
“Actually,” Steve said, “Bucky has been wanting a kitten. I wonder if he would like to shelter some kittens because this box still won’t do if a dog or something shows up.”
“A dog did show up!” one of the girls said. “It was Charlie and Aimee’s corgi.”
“Yeah, and Figaro slapped him so hard.”
“Figaro?”
“Yeah, the mom. That’s what we named her. After Minnie Mouse’s cat.”
“Do you even know Minnie Mouse’s cat?” the younger girl asked. “You don’t have any kids or anything, right?”
“I do not have kids, but I know Minnie Mouse has a cat. Do you know what I do for a living?”
“You work for someone on TV?” Emma guessed and she clearly had knowledge from somewhere.
“I am an artist; I’m an animator.”
Both of the girls looked interested all of a sudden.
“So do you draw Minnie Mouse?” Freckles asked.
“I do not. Right now, I work on Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Before that, I worked on Guardians of the Galaxy.”
“Do you work on Shadowcat?”
Steve shook his head.
“I would love to, but no. I’ve seen the show though and I know some of the animators that work on it.”
“You should name this cat Shadowcat.” Emma pointed to one of the kittens, a little grey thing with white feet.
“Bucky has been wanting a cat for years. I’d have to let him name them.”
“You could give them to him as an Easter present!”
Steve tilted his head as he counted the kittens to himself.
“Well, Bucky is Jewish so he doesn’t celebrate Easter.” He paused and then changed his mind. “You know what? Forget that, he’s only half Jewish and these guys would look cute in a big basket.”
“Emma and me asked our grandma if we could give one to our friend and she said we couldn’t give a live animal as a gift.”
Steve nodded.
“That’s a good rule, but Bucky has been wanting a cat for at least two years now and he keeps saying he has to wait on the Cat Distribution System.”
“This is it!” Freckles shrieked. “This is the cat distribution system doing its job and your cat has arrived.”
“Bucky’s cat,” her cousin corrected.
“Bucky’s cat.”
Steve nodded.
“That’s right. Bucky’s cat,” he agreed, reaching toward the cat carefully. “He has cat supplies already. They’re under the bed and in a drawer and in the hall closet. He just collects them for when this distributed cat mysteriously arrives.”
“How are you going to hide them till Sunday?”
Steve looked up as a nervous laugh escaped from his lips.
“I’m gonna have to do it tonight, aren’t I?”
He watched as the cat in the box- Figaro- began to scratch her chin against his hand.
“Will you keep an eye on her while I go buy some food and a basket and, I don’t know, whatever cats need?”
“I think she has fleas,” Emma warned Steve. “Thats what our grandma said. That’s why she wouldn’t let us bring her in.”
“The more we talk, the more I think we need to bring Bucky right here and let him take control of the situation.”
“You could bring a basket here and put her in it.” the younger girl suggested.
Steve shook his head.
“She probably wouldn’t stay anyway. It was just an idealist’s vision. Bucky’s a realist.”
“We have a bow inside! You go get Bucky and we’ll go get the bow from my birthday bag!” Emma announced excitedly. “I’ll go get it right now!”
—⍟-⍟-⍟—
“Just keep your eyes closed. I don’t trust you.”
“Wow, Rogers, I tell everyone you’re the one person I can trust. Nice to see you return the sentiment.” Bucky kept his eyes closed though. In fact, he put one flesh hand and one metal hand over his eyes to prove he wasn’t looking.
“Come forward a little more,” one of the neighbors giggled.
“I’m right behind you,” Steve added. “Just keep walking forward.”
“I feel like I’m about to be ambushed.”
“You’re going to like it!” the freckle-faced girl promised.
“You’re going to love it!” Emma corrected.
“Alright, and stop,” Steve said. He placed a hand on Bucky’s arm very lightly and gave him a gentle nudge. “Turn to your left just a little bit.”
Bucky did as told without grumbling.
“Now open your eyes.”
Bucky removed his hands and let them fall by his side, but he didn’t even make it to a relaxed position before he was reaching out again.
The girls had indeed put a lime green bow on top of the box. Bucky ducked down to see inside the opening.
“Holy smokes,” he said under his breath. He dropped to his knees so he could see in the box better. “Where did you guys come from?”
The cousins told Bucky the same story they had told Steve now adding the parts about Steve wanting to put them in an Easter basket and how they had fleas.
Bucky counted the kittens.
“Five kittens?” he asked them. “Five kittens and Mom?”
“Figaro and six kittens. That one is Shadowcat.” Emma pointed.
Bucky unsnapped the lid off of the box.
“You have six kittens in here?” he asked.
Figaro just looked at him a little annoyed at the display.
He and Steve both counted them again and then Bucky nudged her till her suckling kittens lost their grip and she sat up grumpily.
“You’re squishing your little white one,” Bucky told her. He picked up the pure white kitten and placed it back out of the way so Figaro could lie back down. The kitten stretched and snuggled in unharmed. “Six kittens. And they just threw you out, huh? Figaro, Shadowcat, and friends, I think you need a change of address.”
“Can we still come see ‘em?” the younger girl asked and Bucky glanced over at her where she had crouched next to him.
“We can help you take care of them,” Emma said quickly. “Like feed ‘em and stuff.”
“I don’t mind, but we’ll get permission from your grandma first.”
Bucky looked up at Steve with an excited grin.
“You know we’re gonna keep one of these guys, right?”
Steve nodded. “I am well aware.”
“And then Abby and Emma will be like our extended family.” He winked over at the girls. Of course he knew both of their names. “Like aunties who come to help care for the children.”
Steve glanced off down the sidewalk and then back at the kitten quickly.
“You better hurry and get them out of here. Aimee and Charlie’s corgi is coming this way.”
Bucky placed the lid back on the box forcing Figaro to have to lay back down.
“Quick, go let your grandma know,” Bucky said and the two girls hurried out of the alley and inside their townhouses.
—⍟-⍟-⍟—
“Fig is such a good mom,” Bucky said as he scratched the cat’s head. Figaro was a young cat, but she was figuring out motherhood. She was currently sitting on top of the coffee table to get away from her kittens. “She knows they’re getting too big for milk.”
Bucky lifted his knee as he sat cross-legged on the floor and a kitten ran under it.
“Bungle,” he called to the cat. “That’s not a play area.”
He lifted the kitten with his metal hand, the one not scratching Figaro. He had learned it was the safer hand to handle kittens with. His other hand was covered in tiny scratches, but Bucky loved it. Over the past few weeks, he had meticulously cared for each one of them. Flea baths with warm water and Dawn dish soap for each of the kittens. Medication and a bath for Figaro.
And he had named them with no theme whatsoever. Whatever felt right was the name they received.
Bungle was the disaster kitten he was holding at the moment, named for the Glass Cat in the Oz books he had read as a child. Bungle was prideful and constantly fighting for the best of everyone’s affection.
Shadowcat had kept her name, named after the superhero from the animated children’s show that was so popular at the moment.
Bucky’s best friend, Natasha, had named the all black one Liho and already claimed she was taking her home even after originally claiming she did not need a cat. Liho meant “misfortune” in Russian, but it was pretty clear the kitten was anything but misfortunate. Natasha had already bought her a large cat tower and a collection of toys.
Lucifer, a reddish-orange cat that stood out from all of his siblings by being both the brightest in color and the least bright in intellect. Lucifer escaped out the door one day and was stopped from making it down the stairs by Steve and Bucky’s upstairs neighbor Remy. Remy had asked about him several times since then and Bucky was pretty sure when the time came, he knew Lucifer would find a new home only two floors away.
Bucky had wanted to name the splotchy tortoiseshell one something to do with paint because he thought that Steve would like that, but when he bit Steve’s toe right through his sock one day, Steve had called him Macavity and that had stuck. They knew their Broadway musicals and that kitten was definitely the villain of the litter.
The last cat was playful, but in her own way. She was pure white and her favourite place was curled up next to Bucky. He called her Alpine for the snowy mountains of Europe. She would tackle a toy and curl up around it and fall asleep right next to him so he often found himself stroking her soft fur and saying sweet things to her. She never acknowledged his words. In fact, Bucky was pretty sure she was deaf, but he liked that she considered him a safe place and he liked that many days, she would seek him out before falling asleep.
—⍟-⍟-⍟—
Bucky was diligent for months. He made sure they got all of their shots and kept them all till they were spayed or neutered and he could be sure that none of them would end up like Figaro had. Besides, he had read that unlike dogs, it was good for kittens to be raised together for a while. He’d let them stay together four months before deciding it was time for their next chapter.
In time, they were each ready for their new futures, and as much as he hated it, Bucky knew they couldn’t all stay with him and Steve (or Emma and Abby) anyway. The hard part was finding them all new homes. Some were easy. Natasha had claimed Liho early and Remy had quickly agreed to take Lucifer. But others were less easy. Bucky put up signs and posted on social media. The kittens were adorable. Steve had gotten excellent pictures of them with ribbons around their necks and playing with yarn. Someone was bound to see them and want them.
—⍟-⍟-⍟—
“Steve, can you step in here before you leave?” Tony asked one day when Steve had shouldered his backpack so the animator immediately took it back off again and placed it on the floor.
“Stark?” he asked, stepping into his boss’s office.
“Quick question: This you?” Tony asked. He held up a poster of the kittens that Steve had posted in the break room.
“No, those are cats,” Steve answered with a smug grin.
“But you have them, yeah?” Tony asked. “Purely humanitarian interest, and definitely not because I want a liability running around the office.”
Steve nodded.
“My partner has been fostering them, yeah.”
Steve’s boss looked at the photo.
“So what’s the application process like here? Background check? Psych eval? Home inspection? I have some very expensive future I’m willing to risk.”
Steve smiled warmly.
“Just come by and meet them, Tony. Maybe see if you like them.”
By the next week, Bungle had been renamed Dr. Shapiro and had become the office cat. Tony was often overheard on several occasions brainstorming and running ideas by Dr. Shapiro, but Steve only ever saw the great doctor contribute by lying across whatever Tony was working on.
—⍟-⍟-⍟—
“Who is the cutest cat in the whole world?!” a mushy voice said from the balcony one day and Bucky stepped out to see a woman with blonde hair hanging half over her balcony to talk to Macavity.
Macavity sat ignoring her.
“He’s an asshole. Do you want him?”
Bucky had been joking. The neighbor wasn’t. She showed up at their door a few minutes later and when she left, Macavity had been rechristened Chewie and he went with her.
—⍟-⍟-⍟—
“Shadowcat, Shadowcat, you need a home, Shadowcat,” Emma sang one day as the kitten begged her for more food. Emma did not give in. Shadowcat and the others had just eaten ten minutes before.
“I’m going to ask Grandma if we can have her since we have shown how good we can take care of her.”
It took a little convincing, including Bucky making a trip to the girls’ townhouse to talk up their responsibility, but eventually their grandmother relented. Abby and Emma took home Shadowcat before school started back.
—⍟-⍟-⍟—
“Alright, you’ve finally won me over,” Sam said as he stood in the living room one day. He sat down on the floor among scattered cat toys.
“With what?” Steve asked.
“Well, Bucky won me over,” Sam corrected. “He keeps posting pictures of these cats and sending me videos of these cats.”
Steve shook his head.
“You wanna cat now?” he asked. “We have one left.”
Bucky came into the room, scooped up Alpine, and held her up to Sam. He held her so close, Alpine put a paw on Sam’s nose.
“No way, man. I don’t want any of that kitten nonsense. I want Mama cat!”
Bucky’s eyebrows went up.
“You want Figaro? Figaro is mine!”
Alpine squirmed in Bucky’s hands.
Sam shook his head and ducked around Bucky and Alpine.
“Where are you, Kitty, Kitty?” Sam asked, looking around. “Figaro, kitty, kitty.”
She knew her name well enough so Figaro popped out from under the sofa with a toy in her mouth. She made a little mrrm sound and walked right past Sam to see Bucky.
Bucky knelt down and Figaro delicately placed the little toy down in front of him. Sam carefully sat down next to them as Bucky placed Alpine down as well.
“Honestly, I kind of thought everyone would take kittens and I would be left with Figaro.” Bucky quickly raised his hands between them to defend himself. “Not that I- Not that I was upset about that. Figaro’s a great cat! She’s still really young and she deserves better than she’s had.”
“I called, Figaro came,” Sam explained easily. “Like a dog. But if I call, I’m still not gonna find Alpine for hours.”
Bucky scooped Alpine up and held her up to his face.
“I wouldn’t come to you either, Sam.”
Sam shot Bucky a face and scratched behind Figaro’s ears.
“I wouldn’t call you.”
Bucky reached out and scratched Figaro’s neck.
“I didn’t think people would want her like they want kittens.” They watched Figaro lick Alpine’s back a few times and then walk back behind Sam.
“You really want her?”
“I don’t want a kitten!” Sam pointed at Alpine. “That’s all on you. I’m taking Mama.”
As if to confirm the statement, Figaro rubbed her face against Sam’s elbow and then down his arm.
“This is my cat!” Sam said matter of factly. “We’re already making plans without you.”
Bucky looked at Steve and then at Alpine.
“This is my cat.” Suddenly Bucky’s voice broke and he brought Alpine to his chest. Alpine, for her part, put her little paws against him and pushed him away. “You don’t like that?” he asked.
He pulled her back away and placed her on his lap. Then he pulled the bottom of his hoodie over her entire body. “How is that?”
Alpine did not seem bothered. She climbed directly up Bucky’s shirt (and a bit of his chest- ouch) and poked her head out of the top of his hoodie, right beneath his chin.
Steve brought his phone up and took a picture even before Bucky could say anything.
“She looks pretty at home here,” Steve laughed before flipping the phone so Bucky could see her.
“She’s my best friend. We protect each other.”
Steve raised his eyebrows.
“You bring a guy one kitten and he’ll forget a lifelong friendship in a few weeks.”
“You brought him a whole bundle of kittens,” Sam reminded Steve without an ounce of sympathy.
“You would think that would endear me more to him, not get me replaced.”
Bucky just nuzzled down onto Alpine’s head.
Alpine, for her part, raised her little head to meet his and looked very content.
Steve raised his phone again and snapped another picture.
—⍟-⍟-⍟—
“That’s it. You are perfect,” Bucky told Alpine as he zipped her into a pink harness vest. He spoke to her constantly and rarely considered that she couldn’t hear any of his praises. “You are going to dazzle everyone who meets you.”
As if words mattered a bit to her, Alpine sat up a little straighter and raised her chin proudly. She really was turning into a pretty cat.
“Today, I put you on a leash. Tomorrow, I get you a sidecar for the motorcycle.”
“Maybe start with a bike,” Steve laughed. “Motorcycles are scary when you’re a kitten.”
“She can’t hear them,” Bucky said, brushing his fingers over Alpine’s head dotingly. “And she’s not scared of anything.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna tell her her dad is scared of all bodies of water at night and grasshoppers at all times.”
Bucky scowled.
“C’mon, Alpine,” he said, scooping up the kitten. “We are going to visit Emma and Abby and the people who love us.”
Alpine purred as Bucky hooked the leash to the little harness. He had been putting the harness on Alpine for days and letting her get used to the feeling. She had gotten past freezing and had started moving around without any awkwardness.
“Did you say you’re going to visit Emma and Abby?”
Bucky reached for his own jacket and he nodded.
“Of course we are,” he confirmed. He plucked his sunglasses from his pocket and slid them onto his face.
“Gonna ask them if they want to volunteer with what talked about.”
“You might wanna see if any other friends want to volunteer. Not their friends. We need ones with driver’s license and IDs.”
“Good plan. You call Sam. I’ll call Natasha. And I’ll talk to our neighbors who are going to need volunteer hours for school soon anyway.”
Steve shook his head.
“I’m about to have to up my allergy meds, aren’t I?”
Scooping up Alpine and putting her close to Steve’s face, Bucky put on a pitiful voice and said, “You wouldn’t do that for a face as sweet as this one?”
Alpine looked mildly annoyed, which was her usual expression.
“Of course I would,” Steve acquiesced easily. “In a heartbeat.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Bucky said in a squeaky voice while waving Alpine’s paw at Steve.
“Let me know what they say,” Steve told Bucky. “Make sure they know it’s a lot of thankless work and rescues don’t really make money.”
“I’ll make sure to tell them we just love really hard and then get our hearts broken whenever cats have to go to their new homes.”
“No,” Steve said softly. “I told you when I was in high school and I helped with dog rescue, I was sick a lot, so I only could foster one dog at a time. But I’d bring that dog home and I would tell them- whether they were scared or shut down or easy going or excitable or whatever, I’d tell them that I was gonna get them ready for their family. I told them from the start that family wasn’t me, but I was going to care about them forever. And then we would work on whatever they needed to work on so that when they were good at walking on a leash and not peering on the floor, when they were not scared of anyone and had learned to play- Some dogs have never played with a toy before when they would come home with me and I got to discover them paying for the first time. But I got them ready. It was rewarding. So sending them to their new home felt like a reward.”
Bucky snuggled Alpine close to his face and made a pitiful sound.
“I want to teach a cat to play.”
“Wait till they come up and start asking for attention. I haven’t done rescue in twenty years, and I have never rescued any cats outside of what we just did, but you have already foster failed one- which is a rite of passage- and you would be amazing for helping others.”
“Will you look into the licensing and like, any grants or funding we could get?”
“I’ll look into it right now while you guys go on your walk.”
Bucky placed Alpine back on the floor and gripped her leash.
“Alright. We are going to meet some neighbors and recruit the girls.”
Steve opened the door for them. “Have fun. See you guys when you get home.”
Bucky kissed Steve quickly and gently tugged Alpine’s leash toward the door.
Alpine pulled back.
“You know you’re gonna have to carry her most of the way, right?”
Bucky sighed and scooped up Alpine again. “Yeah, I’m figuring that out.” He adjusted his jacket and put her inside it before zipping it up again.
Alpine popped her head out above the zipper and nudged Bucky’s chin.
Steve nodded. “You look cute,” he told him with laugh in his voice. “And you,” he told Alpine, “Make him look even better.”