Civil War
“I can look after him.”
Pietro couldn’t really blame Clint for the look of incredulity on his face. But he was going to anyway.
“What? I am perfectly capable of looking after a dog for one night.” Pietro stubbornly crossed his arms over his chest, trying not to puff up in pride as Clint’s gaze drifted down towards the curve of his biceps. Unfortunately, Clint’s momentary distraction didn’t last long as he caught himself and lifted his eyes to meet Pietro’s.
“I’m not saying that you can’t take care of a dog. I’m just…surprised that you want to look after Lucky.” Clint was trying to be polite but all Pietro could hear in his words was “you hate my dog and that’s why I could never date you.”
“I love Lucky,” Pietro insisted.
Clint remained unconvinced. “Even after he destroyed your trainers last week? Or peed all over your bed the other day?”
Pietro gritted his teeth. “Of course,” he lied. “He was just being a dog. I love dogs.”
Clint seemed to be wavering and Pietro could taste victory in the air.
“What about the time you took him for a run and he got your legs all tangled up in his lead and you fell and broke your nose?”
Or maybe not.
That one had really, really hurt.
Pietro sighed. “Clint. I promise that I do not hate your dog. And I promise that I can look after him tonight. Go.”
Clint went.
Pietro hated Clint’s dog.
Or, to put it more accurately, Pietro and Lucky mutually loathed each other. He was half convinced that Clint had found the dog wandering the seven circles of Hell instead of the streets of Bed-Stuy. If the damn beast had belonged to anybody else Pietro would have kept well away but, and here’s the thing, Clint loved that damn mutt so much that Pietro knew, beyond a doubt, that he had no chance with the Avenger if he didn’t learn to get along with him.
Hence, the offer to dogsit.
The offer that Pietro was starting to really regret making.
Clint left and as soon as the lock clicked to signal the shutting of the front door, Lucky had morphed from a genial, waggy tailed ball of fluff to pure, unadulterated hellhound.
A pure, unadulterated hellhound who managed to jump the window ledge and scamper down the fire escape to freedom.
Hell, no.
Not on Pietro’s watch.
Logically, a small demon dog should be no match for the fastest man on Earth and while it’s true that Pietro did emerge victorious from their battle through the streets and alleys of Brooklyn, it was a very ragged, bruised and scraped Pietro that awaited Clint when he returned.
Clint stared.
“So,” he finally asked, a tinge of amusement in his voice, “how did it go?”
Pietro glared.
“Pietro,” Clint sighed, “you know that it’s completely OK if you don’t love my dog, right?”
Pietro shrugged, wincing at the way the movement pulled at his ribs which were tender after chasing Lucky face first into a dumpster.
“It’s not going to make me love you any less.”
Wait, what?
“Jesus, kid, you’re an idiot, you know that?”
“But…you love Lucky.”
“Yeeees. But it’s a very different kind of love. I can feel both at the same time.”
“But, what if…”
“Pietro?”
“Hmm?”
“Shut up and let me kiss you.”
Pietro did.
And if he woke up the next morning to find that Lucky had chewed his way through each item of clothing that he had left scattered on the floor from the couch to Clint’s bedroom, then it was just a good excuse to stay naked in bed with his boyfriend all day.
Check and mate.