Darcy/Bucky 12
“I just want to go in for a minute.” Darcy took a sharp right and headed towards the door of the store they were passing in front of.
She heard Bucky’s long sigh, but when she pulled the glass door open, it was only a second before his arm appeared over her head, holding it open for her. He didn’t say anything, but a glance showed back that he knew just as well as she did that it wasn’t going to be only a minute.
Whatever. She didn’t care. She went through the open door, immediately turning right. There were aisles in the way, of course, but it wasn’t long before she was standing in front of the cat center.
Coincidentally it was open, and she pulled on the door and went in, trusting that Bucky would be able to find her if he wasn’t right behind her.
There was a cat there, an adult, a beautiful calico that was missing the tip of one of its ears. As soon as it saw that she’d stopped right in front of its cage and was looking at it, it got up from its loaf and butted its head against the cage.
Bucky was right beside her, standing with his hands in his pockets, and she looked over at him. “Look at the kitty!”
“Uh huh.” He was wearing a strange sort of smile on his face.
She put her fingers through the bars of the cage to scratch the cat’s ears, and it rubbed against her hand. “I wonder if Tony has a rule about pets.” She scratched at the furry head.
Darcy looked back at him, and he shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I’m gonna tell him you dragged me in here against my will.”
She sighed. She’d seen the cat here for the past month or so, which meant that it would probably be leaving soon, and that would be… Not good. She’d grown a little attached to it. She’d purposely kept herself from looking at its little information tag so that she wouldn’t get attached, but it obviously hadn’t helped.
With her free hand, she tugged the phone out of her pocket and swiped until she was opening up a text to Pepper. I need a cat. That was it. She hit send. Because Tony might object, but Pepper would probably be on her side.
It didn’t take long for the return text. “OK.” That was it. Totally taking that as encouragement to get herself a cat, Darcy let her eyes drift down to the tag. The cat’s name was Rosa, she was three.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she cooed at it. “I tried, but I just can’t stay away from you anymore.”
Bucky gave her a look, one eyebrow raised. “Does this mean we’re gettin’ a cat?”
“Uh, yeah.”
He shrugged and shook his head. “At least Stevie’s not allergic anymore.”