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Pietro woke up to find a small, black, fuzzy head perilously close to his face. Blinking away the remnants of last night’s dream from his eyes, he moved his head backwards, attempting to get a better look at the creature. It appeared to be a cat. Its ears twitched in its sleep and it’s body was pressed against Pietro’s torso for warmth - despite it being under the duvet.
Pietro smiled to himself and started to gently stroke the cat’s head. The fur was soft. Smooth. Silky. Someone took a great deal of care looking after it. The cat cracked open a sleepy eye and twisted its head to regard Pietro. It gave a big toothy yawn.
“Had a long night catching mice?”
The cat halfheartedly swatted him on the nose.
“Now now, keep that up and I’ll have to clip your claws,” Pietro said smugly.
The cat stood up gingerly and pulled itself out from under the covers. It shook itself, righting the muzzed fur on one side, and slunk out of the room.
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Wanda returned to her room after breakfast to get ready for the day. She dodged the clothes on the floor and collected the coffee mugs from the shelves as she made her way to the bathroom to do her hair. Her room was in twilight - the sun not yet reaching the windows of her and Natasha’s floor. The winter always made her sleepy, especially in the evenings, and she just didn’t have the energy to put clothes away after saving the world.
Elsewhere, in the darkness of a wardrobe, a black cat stretched and then settled back down on top of a creased red dress. It had been woken by a door shutting, but was too lazy to bother about what that might mean for it.
Wanda opened her wardrobe door, her hair now neatly braided into a fishtail plait. She’d been planning to wear her deep red jeans today and a white t-shirt with the Ironman helmet on the front and Cap’s shield on the back. She liked wearing it because it annoyed both of the aforementioned people, and she often got compliments about it from other nerds when she went out.
The t-shirt was not hanging up, so she pulled the clothes on hangers aside to search the bottom of the closet for it. She didn’t get far. A black cat was sleeping on top of the pile of semi-clean clothes kept on the floor of the wardrobe.
Wanda crept out of the room to get Natasha.
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Contrary to popular belief, the cat had not been asleep, it had been dozing, which is a very different thing. After Wanda had left the room it crept out of the nest it had made itself and started dragging the various items of clothing off the floor and onto the bed.
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“What exactly is it that you wanna show me?”
“You’ll see.” Wanda pulled Natasha into her room and stopped dead. On the bed, spelt out in various t-shirts, skirts and jeans were the words “clean me.”
Natasha raised an eyebrow, unable to stop the corners of her mouth turning up. “I’m assuming this isn’t what you wanted to show me.”
“No actually.” Wanda pulled open her closet. There was the black cat, curled up as though it had never moved, except that Its head was now facing the back of the closet instead of the doors.
Natasha knelt down in front of it and started making cooing sounds. The cat blinked up at her slowly. Natasha scooped the cat up and continued telling it it was a very handsome boy.
If cats could talk, this one would be saying “fuck off” right about now. It looked ten seconds away from racking its claws down Natasha's arm. Something about her firm grip and almost threatening tone to her cooing held it back though.
“I had no idea you liked cats,” Wanda smiled softly. It was unusual to see Natasha’s soft side like this.
“I seem to have a particular connection to this one.”
“Hmm?”
“Yeah. What a beautiful boy. Loki, say hi the Wanda.” Natasha’s voice was getting increasingly soppy, and she held the cat’s paw to make it wave in Wanda’s direction.
The cat meowed plaintively.
Confusion flitted across Wanda’s face, then she laughed towards the cat, “You’re a little bitch, I’ll clean my room whenever I feel like it.”
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Steve woke up gasping. He couldn’t breathe and the room was black. He lay still, barely able to move, sucking in painful breaths - the air like a milkshake refusing to come up the straw.
It took him several minutes to register the fluff grazing his cheeks. Still having difficulty breathing, he felt around the sofa with shaky hands and eventually up over his face. There was a large fluffy lump, covering his face. He lifted it off with both hands and breathing suddenly got a lot easier.
He sat up, blinking, looking around the room, trying to discern the cause of his flashback to his asthmatic days. He was still marginally dazed and confused when the fluffy lump jumped back up onto his lap and started padding round.
Am I still asleep? He pondered momentarily. He slapped himself in the face. Well that hurt like a bitch. Awake then. The cat stared at him quizzically. Common sense told Steve that cats didn’t have the facial muscles to smirk. His eyes told him otherwise. He hesitantly stroked the cat, who looked perplexed at the action, and then jumped up onto the back of the sofa. It pottered over to the armrest behind Steve’s head and sat there. Steve lay back, attempting to cuddle it again. He had no idea who’s it was or where it had come from, but it was here and he liked cats.
The cat clearly had other ideas. As Steve stretched an arm towards it, it stepped onto Steve’s shoulder tentatively. It pressed its paw down several times to make sure its stepping stone was solid, then it dug its claws into Steve’s shoulder and stepped over to resume its previous position across Steve’s face.
Steve let out a scream that he would later deny ever happened, and that everyone in a three mile radius would later tease him about. He’d been shot at, stabbed and tortured, but damn did that cat’s claws hurt.
Sam was laughing at him from behind his book, watching the whole ordeal unfold. Steve Rogers - Captain America - defeated by a small and exceedingly fluffy black cat. It was some of the most funny stuff he’d seen in months.
Steve flung his arms out to remove the cat from his face, leaving it looking extremely displeased and disgusted, crouched on the floor, and himself with some nasty scratch marks down his cheeks.
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“Loki get out,” Stephen muttered from his seat suspended in the middle of the room.
The cat looked most offended and left as swiftly as it had come.
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Clint was sharpening his arrows when he saw a shadow move. He kept sharpening - things like this always happened and it turned out to only be Nat’s cardigan sleeve or Tony’s left shoe left lying on the floor because he can’t be bothered to put it on the shoe rack two fucking inches away.
The shadow moved again and this time Clint paid attention. He watched it shake its back paws and stroll over to his collection of arrows that he’d just finished working on and start swatting at the ends. He rolled his eyes and stretched a hand out to it. It looked almost offended at the gesture, and Clint was taken back to the moment in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when Peter extends a hand to Mr Beaver, who replies “I ain’t gonna smell it if that’s what you want.”
The cat then continued to ignore Clint, patting the arrows languidly. Clint turned back to his whetstone, but with a vague sense of unease. He wasn’t superstitious so to speak, but he also wasn’t gonna prod these kinds of things. Just in case.
He’d never understood why exactly black cats were bad omens, but he always felt vaguely chilled in their presence. This was probably psychological: he was told by family and friends that this was true, so an unconscious part of him believed it. Clint was aware of this concept - he wasn’t stupid (at least not in that sense -) but as he liked to say… Just in case.
He turned to take another arrow. He grasped for it and just missed it. He lent back a little and grabbed again. He still couldn’t touch it. Sliding back a little further he reached the arrow, and his hand passed right through it.
He looked at the cat. It refused to acknowledge him and continued patting the arrows. Clint turned back to his sharpened pile. He blinked a few times. All the arrows were brightly coloured and plastic with suckers on the end.
Clint got up and backed away slowly. The cat remained disinterested, but if Clint had been watching more carefully, he would have seen minute green sparks around its paws.
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Clint came back into the room with Natasha held in front of him and Wanda behind. She was snickering, muffling it with her jumper sleeve, and Clint was feeling got at. Natasha walked purposefully up to the cat lying stretched out in the middle of the pile of blunt arrows. It rolled over and crouched, hissing when it saw her approaching.
Unphased, Natasha scooped up the cat once more. “I’m not seeing the problem with your arrows,” she smiled at Clint.
“I swear they were all plastic kiddy arrows. I saw them,” Clint protested.
“Have you been at Thor’s Asgardian mead again? He told you it was too strong for mortal men.” Wanda crushed a smile. She knew full well he hadn’t (the first and last time that had happened things had ended badly for all.)
“You gotta be kidding. I’m not touching that stuff again with a thirty foot pole even if you paid me.”
“Maybe you just need more sleep.” Nat patted his shoulder as she and Wanda left with the cat.
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“It’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it,” Pietro said with a sigh. The rather large, fluffy, black cat was sitting in the middle of the bed. It looked up at him with slitted eyes and yawned deliberately in his direction. Pietro rolled his eyes, then lay on his stomach and gave the cat’s head a scratch. If cats could smile smugly, this was it. It purred loudly and pushed its head into Pietro’s hand, making Pietro grin to himself.
It stood up eventually and raked its claws through the duvet cover. Pietro swatted at the cat’s paws, “I don’t want to have to explain to Tony why he has to buy another set of bed covers for us. That was a painful enough conversation the first time round.”
The cat finished sharpening its claws and nuzzled Pietro’s cheek (he grimaced at the cat’s wet nose) and then it sidled around Pietro and dug its paws into his side, hauling itself up to lie on Pietro’s back. It spread itself out and purred even louder than before, knowing Pietro wouldn’t move now unless the building itself was collapsing. “You are a terrible person.” Pietro didn’t mean it, and the cat knew that too, but it dug its claws into Pietro’s back anyway.
“Fuck off!”
Pietro buried his head in the bed covers and promptly fell asleep. It had been a long day. When Pietro woke up a few hours later, the cat was gone.
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Bucky was eating cereal in the kitchen when a round, furry thing landed on the table with a thud. It quickly disentangled its paws from under itself to sit regally on the marble top, as though it hadn’t just face planted on the table. Bucky looked puzzled for a moment, then started to snicker. The cat tilted its head quizzically, as if it wanted to know what Bucky found so funny. “It’s beauty, it’s grace, it lands square on its face,” Bucky answered with a smirk.
The cat paused to look offended, and then sauntered over to Bucky’s bowl, attempting to lick the milk off the top few frosted flakes. “Hey, sssst, get off,” Bucky hissed. The cat pulled its head back to glare at Bucky, before trying to drink the milk again. This time Bucky batted it away with his metal hand, which the cat tried to bite.
Bucky moved the bowl out of the way with his right hand - the cat hadn’t let go of his left and was trying desperately to bite into it without cracking a tooth. “You know what, you leave me no choice...” Bucky sighed heavily, then donned a smirk and half lidded eyes, ruffled his hair a little, and said breathlessly “bite me daddy.”
The cat fled the room.
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Bruce was lying asleep on the sofa in the lab when a weight hit him in the stomach. He woke up with a start to discover green slitted eyes way too close to his face. “Ughhh not again.” He slung an arm across his face. The cat licked his hand hopefully. Bruce pulled the arm aside from half of his face to squint at the cat, “”it is 11pm, can a man not have a few hours sleep.”
Apparently the answer was no, because the cat turned around and started kneading his stomach. It then turned a couple of circles and collapsed into a vague ball. Bruce scratched the cat behind its ear gently. “You’re a very nice person when you’re not trying to destroy New York.” The cat hissed. “You should try peaceful hobbies like this more often.”
The cat gave a squeak and stretched out its chin to rest on Bruce's chest. “Good kitty.” The cat would have protested at being demeaned like this, but it was enjoying the head scratches.
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Around 2am the cat took its leave and went to find Tony at his workbench. The surrounding lab was in darkness, apart from the halo of light around Tony as he worked. The cat twisted itself through Tony’s legs and then leapt up on the counter top. Normally Tony would flinch at such sudden movements but he was used to the cat by now. “And how was your day?”
The cat sat at the edge of the desk and was engulfed by black smoke. When the swirling mass cleared, Loki was swinging his legs and leaning back on his hands next to Tony’s suit helmet. “Surprisingly eventful. And mentally scarring,” he added with a shudder.
Tony chuckled, “I told you not to push Bucky. He has my kind of sense of humour.”
Loki pulled a face. “On the contrary, I think Bruce prefers me as a cat.”
“Well, you are significantly less dangerous as a cat. Less likely to inspire an anxiety attack and all.”
Loki pushed a spanner off the table in protest. “You illustrate my point.” Tony gestured at the spanner now on the floor.
“When was the last time you slept,” Loki asked, giving Tony a mock-sympathetic head tilt.
“Oh don’t pull that card on me, you’ll start to sound like Cap,” Tony grinned.
Loki visibly recoiled. “You are a cruel man sometimes.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Still true isn’t it.”
“I’m starting to think you were right about me doing less damage as a cat.”
They both paused, Loki watching the floor, Tony unscrewing a particularly tiny screw.
“Is being a cat like having a fursona?” Tony asked suddenly, in an effort to lighten the mood.
“I have no idea what that is and I am happy to remain in the dark about it,” Loki answered.
“Does this mean Pietro’s into that kind of thing?” Tony continued, a sly smile playing across his face. This would probably end badly for him, but it would be worth it to see Pietro’s face when asked this.
“I’ll ask,” Loki deadpanned, before stalking out of the room. He’d taken enough abuse in one day to cover an entire year. To be fair, he had also antagonised other people plenty too though. It was one of his favourite pastimes , but he had to accept the repercussions if he was to keep it up.
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Next morning at breakfast Tony was met with a glowering Pietro. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” he snarled through a mouthful of croissant (which madde it considerably less menacing.)
Loki was poorly concealing his laughter behind Wanda’s shoulder, which was shaking from her own mirth.