Chapter 2
I had been fed, and now I was sleeping on the sofa, much like how I did when I moved here. I shifted my body so the sun would hit it. I never knew how much time I spent in the dark, I missed the sun. I opened my eyes and moved to stretch. I sighed as I was finally able to get the tense muscles loose.
I then made my way to sit at a window, sunbathing. My coat looked like fire enveloping ash as the sun licked my fur. I soon fell asleep in the sun.
...
I yawned myself awake and decided to actually find out where in the timeline that I know I am. I was somewhere in 2011, but which movie? I can tell it's after Ironman 2, so the war on New York must be soon. The Avengers... Loki... I am not looking forward to a brainwashed loki.
I sniffed the air to try and find Tony. He had this particular smell of alcohol and could still smell a slight, extremely small amount of toxicity in his blood. I leapt into the elevator, and the smell of metal masked everything else.
'How am I going to reach the buttons?' I thought.
I jumped up to try and reach the buttons. My claws hooked into the ridges as I came back to the floor. I failed. I growled in irritation as my tail lashed around in the air.
'Try again.' I told myself.
So I did. I jumped at more of an angle this time, and it worked. The elevator started going down, and I waited. Tony was in his lab.
...
I pushed on the door and walked in. He was extremely focused on his suit. I made sure not to distract him because he's going to need his suit to be the best. It is better to make sure he's ready than to stop his work and possibly kill him. Butterfly effect and all.
I was there to make sure he rested from time to time. When I saw that he was slipping up on his work, I jumped into his lap, making it impossible to work further. I did this a few times. A couple of days went by. I didn't fully know when to expect the next movie or not.
...
On one of the forced naps I made Tony do, I felt a shift in the air. A spike that made my hair stand on end. The air felt faintly of static electricity. I could be wrong, but... I hope I'm not.
I leapt out of Tony's arms. He stirred a little but stayed asleep. That was good. He'd need his energy to deal with the call from Shield. I then made my way into the apartment area, where I met pepper.
She was making something for tony, and at this point, I hadn't eaten in days, and neither has Tony. Pepper was surprised to see me, a cat, on the counter in Tony's apartment. I swayed my tail and glared at pepper.
"Who are you?" She asked in a higher pitched voice.
I huffed in response and looked over at what she was cooking. I couldn't be too mean to her, though. She has a lot of responsibilities from Tony handing the company to her. I softened my glare and rubbed my face on her hand.
"I'll give you some food." Pepper said as she rifled through the fridge.
I was given some milk in a dish, hardly what I would call a meal, but I'll take what I get. I licked the bowl clean and moved with her to get Tony. I moved fluidly between pepper's feet as she handed tony his food.
...
Soon, Tony was flying around the city, and Pepper was looking at some tech thingy that must've been connected to Tony's suit. They were communicating with each other, so this was their date before coulson came and interrupted. Making the tower self-sufficient, in power terms.
"Light her up." Tony said as I tuned in.
I moved to try and see the outside of the tower better, wanting to see what it looked like off-screen. All the lights flickered on before shining down on the rest of the buildings with a bright glow.
"How does it look?" Pepper said.
"Like Christmas but with more me." Tony replied as I meowed.
"We've got to go wider on the public awareness campaign." Pepper stated, "You need to do some press."
I meowed softly in complaint. Pepper looked down at me and gave me a reassuring smile.
"I'm in DC tomorrow," She continued, "I'm working on the zoning for the next three buildings."
"Pepper, you're killing me. The moment, remember?" Tony complained at her. I nodded in agreement. "Enjoy the moment."
"Get in here, and I will." She responded. I let out a soft warning hiss as they flirted.
Tony then landed on the balcony, rings, and other things, taking off his ironmsn suit. Jarvis then interrupted.
"Sir, Agent coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D is on the line." The AI pointed out.
"I'm not in," Tony waved in dismissal, "I'm actually out."
Tony continued down to pepper.
"Sir, I'm afraid he's insisting." Jarvis stated.
"Grow a spine jarvis." Tony said, I rolled my eyes. It's not like an AI can actually do that. "I've got a date."
Finally, Tony stepped inside as his suit pieces folded away into the floor. I've always wondered how he did that. I shifted my body to brush against Tony's legs as I weaved between them as he moved.
"Levels are holding steady, I think." Pepper added.
"Of course they are." Tony smiled arrogantly. "I was directly involved. This brings me to my next question."
Tony then moved to pepper as she turned around.
"How does I feel to be a genius?" Tony asked.
I let out a low purr as I moved with Tony, looking up at them. I then sat when he stopped walking.
"Well, I really wouldn't know, now would I?" Pepper stated factually, which I think was more flirting, so I growled.
My tail curled around her ankle as I glared at both of them. But I didn't exactly feel particularly comfortable distracting them.
"What do you mean?" Tony said, "all this came from you."
"No, all this came from that." Pepper corrected as she pointed at his chest, which held the arc reactor.
"Give yourself some credit." Tony smiled, "Please." He added.
I purred in agreement with him. Pepper didn't give herself enough credit. Sounds like she came up with the idea.
"Stark tower is your baby." Tony stated as he placed his hands on pepper's upper arms. "Give yourself... 12% of the credit."
"12%?" Pepper repeated.
I jumped up on the counter near them and growled at Tony. Making sure he knew would definitely pay for that later.
"An argument can be made for 15." He quickly added, looking between me and pepper.
"12%? My baby?" She reiterated.
"Well, I did do all the heavy lifting." Tony muttered as he walked after pepper.
I decided to lick what pepper was drinking. presseco, or champagne, I presumed. I drank some and sat down again, watching the 'show'.
"Literally, I lifted the heavy things." Tony said as pepper moved away from him more. "And, sorry, but the security snafu? That was on you."
"Oh." Pepper sounded sarcasticly whilst pulling out more bottles of unopened champagne.
"My private elevator..." Tony trailed off.
"You mean our elevator?" Pepper jumped in when pouring the champagne.
"It was teeming with sweaty workmen." Tony continued complaining. "I'm going to pay for that comment about percentages in some subtle way later, aren't I?"
I sighed as I stuck near the elevator, I wonder if coulson is good with cats.
"It's not going to be that subtle." Pepper replied whilst handing a drink to Tony.
I rolled my eyes and moved to ignore them as I settled on the counter I was on. Didn't need to hear their flirting. I did hear jarvis having its protocol being overwritten.
"Mr. Stark, we need to talk." Coulson sounded from where tony was.
It was only a matter of time until the elevator door opened. My tail swayed off the edge of the counter in anticipation. The door opened, revealing Agent coulson with a phone pressed against his ear. He looked at me cautiously.
"Security breach." Tony sighed, "it's on you."
"Mr. Stark." Coulson stated as he moved from the elevator.
"Phil! Come in." Pepper said as she stood up from where she was sitting.
"Phil?" Tony mumbled, sounding annoyed.
"I can't stay." Coulson stated as they all approached each other. Coulson looked my way wearily, not a fan of cats, I suppose.
"His first name is Agent." Tony pointed out, which fell on deaf ears.
"Come on in. We're celebrating." She responded.
"Which is why he can't stay." Tony complained bitterly.
"We need you to look this over as soon as possible." Coulson then tried to hand over something.
"I don't like being handed things." Tony said.
"That's okay because I love being handed things." Pepper interrupted Tony as she took the file and handed coulson her drink. "So, let's trade." Pepper them took Tony's drink and handed him the file. "Thank you." Pepper added as she took a sip of Tony's drink.
Tony took in a sharp intake of breath before speaking. "Official consultation hours are between 8 and 5 every other Thursday."
"This isn't a consultation." Coulson confirmed.
"Is this about the Avengers?" Pepper asked as I perked up. "Which I know nothing about." She added innocently.
"The Avengers initiative was scrapped, I thought." Tony pointed out, "and I didn't even qualify." He complained.
"I didn't know that either." Pepper stated as she shrugged.
"Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others." Tony continued on. I jumped down and rubbed against his legs as I felt his heart rate elevate.
"That I did know." She nodded.
"This isn't about personality profiles anymore." Coulson countered.
"Whatever. Ms. Potts, got a second." Tony said as he motioned for her to come to him.
"Half a mo." Pepper whispered to coulson as she moved to Stark.
Tony was pressing 'buttons' on a hologram as I jumped up to see what he was doing.
"You know, I thought we were having a moment." Tony whispered to pepper. I let out an unamused sound about what he said.
"I was having 12% of a moment." She shot back. I let out a purr of laughter as Tony's expression changed. "This seems pretty serious. Phil's pretty shaken." She admitted after some silence.
"How would you know if it's..." Tony stopped, "why is he 'phil'?" Jealousy in his tone slightly.
"What is all this?" Pepper redirected, talking about the file that was handed to Tony.
"This is..." he trailed off as he moved his hands to show all the holograms, "this..."
The holograms all moved, and audio came out and overlapped with each other. That made it difficult for me to remain composed as it was ten times louder for me. I laid on my stomach and put my paws over my ears to hopefully mute the sound slightly. Tony saw this and turned it down a little.
Pepper took a deep breath as she looked around at the videos. " I'm going to take the jet to DC tonight."
"Tomorrow." Tony interjected.
"You have homework." She pointed out, "You have a lot of homework."
"Well, what if I didn't?" Tony asked.
"If you didn't?"
"Yeah."
"You mean when you've finished?" She reconstructed the question. "Well, um, then..." Pepper then leaned in and whispered something to tony.
I did not want to know. I did not want to hear what they would do either. Lucky for me, Pepper would leave now.
"Square deal." Tony gave in, "fly safe."
They then kissed. I then looked over at 'phil' coulson, he shifted on his feet uncomfortably.
"Work hard." She whispered before walking over to coulson. "So, any chance you're driving by LaGuardia?" She asked coulson.
"I can drop you." He responded.
"Fantastic." Pepper said, her voice becoming more of a background noise as she left.
I then watched Tony, and he pulled a hologram of the Tesseract into his hand. He looked at it intently as he moved his hand. I flicked my tail to get his attention, but he was so unwrapped in his 'homework'. Whatever pepper told him made him hyperfocus.
As he learnt about things I decided to see if anything else was different about me. I went to go grab myself some food before I did anything and fell. I didn't feel the hard flooring but a soft leather, the sofa. I had teleported. I tried to feel that again and teleported back to the counter. I then did the same for the food. I didn't expect it to work but it did.
As Tony worked I left him food and water and made sure he took it. I kept him and myself fed as he worked nonstop, I also made him take little breaks to sleep. Even if it was only for a few hours it was good enough for me. I also could stay with Tony and, hopefully, help out. Even in this inconvenient form of a cat, guess I'm more of a flerken.
Fury definitely won't like me.