Alpine's Homecoming
Bucky opens the door to the apartment while juggling the bags of pets supplies in his hand and the squirming kitten in his jacket. The little kitten is meowing nonstop, her paw keeps reaching up and tapping his chest trying to claw her way out of the safety of his jacket.
“Alright, I know. Just another minute I…” he is interrupted by yet another muffled “Meow”.
“I know.” He replies as he closes the door and looks up to see Jude sitting on the couch with a wide grin and a mischievous gleam in her green eyes.
“Whatcha got there Bucky Deer?” she asks with a tilt of her head.
He goes to answer but once more a “Meow” is heard, he just sighs and walks over to the couch. He plops down as gently as possible so that the kitten isn’t jostled. As he sets the bags down, Jude leans over pulling his jacket open slightly and peeks inside. Jude lets out a squeal and slowly moves her hand to the kitten’s face, she lets the small creature sniff at her hand as she coos at it.
“Can I ask why you were trying to sneak a cat into our apartment?” she asks once the kitten seemed to deem her worthy of petting its furry little head.
“I was sneaking her into the tower not our apartment. Tony’s allergic to cats.” He replies.
“Ah okay, so Tony is still going to want us to give her back to wherever she came from.”
“Yeah…but I figured if I got her to you first Tony wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Ohis that right? In case you haven’t noticed Tony dislikes me almost as much as he dislikes you.” She says while carefully pulling the dirt covered kitten fully from Bucky’s jacket. The kitten lets out a few more meows at being freed from her cramped prison. Jude places the cat on her lap and continues to pet it.
“But Pepper likes you. And if you go running to her begging to keep our new addition, he won’t be able to do anything about it.” Bucky shoots right back at her, he reaches into one of the bags and pulls out a small bright pink mouse toy. He rips the tag of and dangles it in front of the kitten, who quickly swats at it.
“How devious of you, no wonder he doesn’t like you. Plotting and planning behind his back like this. You should be ashamed of yourself Sergeant Barnes.” Jude says shaking her head and grinning even wider than before. Bucky just shrugs and watches as the kitten leaps from Jude’s lap onto the coffee table with her new mouse toy in her mouth. Jude leans forward cooing again.
“She is sooo cute. Where did you get her?”
“Found her on the side of the road in a box that said ‘free kittens.’ I grabbed her and her three siblings and brought them here.” He answers.
“Where are the others?!” she exclaimed turning to Bucky.
“Steve and Nat were on their way out. They are spending the weekend at Clint’s and last I heard Clint was looking to get a few barn cats for his kids.”
“So you gave away our baby’s siblings to Clint’s kids?” she asks pretending to be incensed, bringing her hand to her chest to add some dramatic flair to her act.
“You don’t have to say it like that, but yeah. He has three kids and there were three other cats, it worked out pretty well I think.” He replies rolling his eyes at her antics, he was very used to them by now.
“I’m just busting your balls, one kitten is more than enough, especially for first time parents like us.” She laughs and Bucky can’t help but smile at her, his favorite sound is her laugh after all.
“Did you name our baby yet?” Jude asks moving to cuddle Bucky’s side.
“Not yet I thought you and I could pick something together.” He places his arm around her and she lets out a small hum. She purses her lips and watches their newest family member prance around their living room.
“We could go really cliché and call her Snowball or Snowflake.” Jude states.
“Or equally cliché and just call her Fluffy or Princess.” Bucky throws his suggestion out.
“Let’s stick to the snow theme but like not so obvious like … like snowy things. Sledding is a snow thing we could,” she starts but is interrupted by Bucky saying “We aren’t naming our cat sled.”
“That wasn’t what I was going to suggest! I was thinking like you go sledding or snowboarding or skiing in the snow, that is snow adjacent… so like … we could call her Bunny.” Jude starts off confidently but trails off, her last words almost a whisper.
“Bunny? She is a cat… why would we call her Bunny?” He looks at her like she grew a second head. Jude huffs turning her face away from Bucky before replying. “Because of the bunny hill for beginners, don’t look at me like that.”
“Why don’t we just call her Winter?” Bucky asks while using his free hand to turn her face back toward him.
“We aren’t naming our baby Winter, ‘Oh what’s your cat’s name?’ ‘Winter’ ‘Isn’t that your boyfriends name?’ People will think we named her after you!” Jude answers, rolling her eyes and pouting. Bucky couldn’t help but chuckle, because anything snow related is also related to winter and thus anything they end up naming the small kitten would be like naming it after him. This is something he knew better than to tell Jude, she would figure it out on her own rather quickly once she is no longer distracted by the kitten’s cuteness.
“Alright what about Everest? That’s a snowy mountain, does that work?”
“Everest is a boy’s name.”
“Now you are just being ridiculous.”
“Everest is a boy’s name, think of something cuter.”
“What about Pocono?”
“Now who is being ridiculous?”
“Okay give me a minute.”
The two of them sit back and watch as their kitten explores the living room. After a few minutes Bucky pulls the bags up onto the couch and starts throwing more toys out for her to play with. He also places a litter box and kitty litter onto the floor. He leaves the cat food and the bottle of pet shampoo in the bags. Once all of the toys are scattered Bucky sits back and pulls Jude into his lap. She lets out a stream of giggles and kisses his cheek. He hums and puts on a thoughtful face and asks “What about Alpine?”
“Alpine…Alpine… I like it.”
They both look over at their newest family member and smile. Just then Friday chimes in with a message from Tony who is anything but happy about the newest member of the Avenger’s family.
“Doll you better get to Pepper before he does.”
“On it!” Jude yells while jumping off Bucky’s lap and making a run to the door.