Chapter One
The sleek white Audi Spyder with the license plate reading “STARK11” slipped into an empty parking space in front of the grocery store, stopping short with a brief squeal of tires. The purring engine was silenced by the driver, who looked to his passenger.
“Stay here.” Tony Stark ordered, pointing at her sternly, “I mean it. I’ll be right back. So, stay.” With that he slid from the vehicle with ease, striding inside the grocery store, which JARVIS said was the only one in the area that was still open at two forty-seven in the morning. Tonight—well, this morning—he was a man on a mission. A man whose mission was derailed almost as soon as he stepped inside the store. Tony could not remember ever setting foot in a grocery store; his idea (or his date’s ideas) of shopping involved high end boutiques, not something as mundane as a Vons. He was certain neither his old man or his mother had ever set foot inside a grocery store either, which was not a concept he wanted to unpack right now.
No. Mission first.
He stared at the aisles arrayed before him, before finally looking towards the employee at the single open checkout lane. She was frozen in position as if she were a deer and he had just shone a spotlight on her.
“… Are you…?” She ventured.
“Get that a lot. Yes, I am. Now, where would I find the cat… Things?”
“Cat… Things?”
“Things a cat needs. Food, treats, toys. Maybe one of those weird beds they can hide in. Cat things.”
“Aisle seven, towards the back.” The young woman pointed, and Tony almost smirked to notice her two finger point. Someone had worked for Disney.
“Thank you…” He squinted, looking at her nametag. Hard to read from a distance, but still possible, “Katie.” He turned to look back at the aisles, “Aisle seven.” He said, more to himself than anything, before striding off, looking to see where they were numbered. Great. Hanging signs in the middle of the aisles, so he had to be smack in the middle of one to read the number. That wasn’t inconvenient. Not at all. Not as if they could be placed on the endcaps, oh no.
He had been in the store for less than five minutes and was already convinced that he hated grocery shopping.
He found his way to aisle seven and had to pass through a sea of products made for and marketed towards canines before he found the cat food. And there… There Tony Stark met his match. There were bags and cans, even a few boxes and canisters. Everything was labelled with some sort of meat flavor or flavor medley (he was fairly certain that mixing grilled chicken with cheddar and serving it in gravy was against some sort of law and that subjecting an animal to that as a meal was animal cruelty) and there were far, far too many choices. The average menu at the restaurants he preferred to wine and dine at did not even have this level of choice.
“Um, sir? Can… Is there something I can assist you with?”
He looked over at the young man who was standing at the end of the aisle and trying to maneuver a pallet jack loaded with bags of pet food printed in banana yellow. The kid—he couldn’t be over eighteen—was skinny and had his blueberry colored hair shaved into a faux hawk, one arm covered by a black sleeve, almost certainly to cover a tattoo. But there was also a rainbow glitter paw print earring on one ear that told Tony all he needed to know. This was someone who could help him. The first rule of unfamiliar territory was to listen to the experts. In this case, the expert was Michael, going by the name tag.
“Yes.” Tony said after taking this information all in in only a moment, seeing the realization cross the kid’s face when he faced him fully, “Which one is your best cat food?”
“Um… You have a cat?”
“I do now. Inherited it. Tragic accident. Cat food, please.”
“Well, um, wet or dry food?”
“What’s the difference?”
Michael seemed to relax at these words, as if Tony had just spoken the password to let him in to the speakeasy where the secret society of cat owners held their meetings.
“Well, with my cats I give wet food only two or three times a week to help keep their coats glossy and skin moisturized. The rest of the time I free-feed with dry food. Since cats are obligate carnivores, you want to look at the ingredients list and get a food that has meat as its first ingredient, not filler like corn or rice or wheat.” Tony liked how enthused this kid was getting, “Most of the wet foods are pretty good, but with dry foods-”
“What would you get your cats if you were me?”
“If I were you, I’d probably make them homemade food out of chicken and fish and stuff, but if I was going off what was available ready made here, I would go with the Blue Buffalo dry food and Fresh Pet wet food. Does the cat have any dietary restrictions or health issues? Like… Is it prone to UTIs or hairballs? Is it an adult or a kitten or a senior?
“Adult, I think. I… Don’t know. She’s… Fluffy, if that helps. She looks like a tribble with a face. Easily eighty percent of her mass is made up of fur.”
“Then you’ll want to be careful of hairballs. Cats are really good at grooming themselves, but you’ll want to see if you can brush her a couple of times a weak so she’s not ingesting her fur when she grooms.” Michael was pulling down a five-pound bag of cat food, and then went to a cooler, “How many pounds is she?”
“Is that important?”
“Well, you need to make sure you’re feeding her enough for her weight without overfeeding her.”
“Right.” Tony took the five-pound bag and hefted it a moment, “She’s a little heavier than this, but not by much.”
“Oh, so a lot smaller than Princess Fat Fat, maybe about the size of Shadow.” When Tony looked at him, brows raised, he flushed. “My cats. Princess Fat Fat and Shadow. Well, it’s supposed to be Strawberry and Shadow, but Fat Fat likes to eat and doesn’t like to run around to work the weight off, so… Princess Fat Fat.”
“Not judging. Good name. It’s very descriptive.” Tony held onto the bag of Blue Buffalo, inspecting it. No fancy (or disgusting) medleys here, just chicken recipe. “How much of this do I give her?”
“If she’s really only six or seven pounds, a cup of dry food a day should be fine.”
“And wet food?”
“Maybe an eighth to a quarter of a pound every other day, but not instead of the dry food. In addition to it.” The kid offered Tony a one-pound chub that he had pulled out of the cooler. “At least until you can talk to a vet or someone better informed and set her up with a meal plan.”
“That’s a thing?”
Michael shrugged, looking sheepish, “For the really spoiled ones it is. I just assumed… Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, no, it was a good idea. I’ll have to get that done. Thank you for this. Absolutely could not have done this without your help.” Tony said sincerely. Oh, he probably could have, but it would have taken longer and involved a lot more frustration on his part, and likely on the cat’s part as well.
“You’re welcome. Um… One more question? It’s a new cat? You just got her?”
“Yes.”
“Did she come with her litter box?”
“Her what?”
“… Okay. Now we need to move to this part of the aisle…”
~*~
Tony dropped the two very heavy canvas bags and the empty plastic litter box on the passenger side floor of his car, looking at the miserable looking lump of tawny colored fur that was huddled on the seat.
“I’ve got enough stuff to hold us over until tomorrow, when I can talk to Pepper and get you set up.” He said, before going around and getting into the driver’s seat. He looked down at the cat, who was looking at him with mournful jade eyes that dominated her face, “You wouldn’t happen to be able to tell me where the backups to all your data are hidden, would you?”
“Mew.” The cat responded, shifting and hunching down further, looking like she was sulking.
“Thought not.” Tony sighed. It would have been nice if she could; it would make fixing this situation a hell of a lot easier.
No. Back to the problem he could fix. His mission. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast and that needed to be remedied. It was the one part of this absolutely bonkers situation that he could do anything about immediately.
Now he just needed to figure out how to talk to the cat. No, he needed to figure out how to understand a cat, because talking to her was easy, and he was positive that she could understand him. Trying to find meaning in the sounds she produced… That was more difficult.
“I really wish you were still human.” He muttered.
The cat hissed, and Tony decided that was her either saying “me too” or “fuck off”. Maybe some combination of the two.
“I deserved that.” Tony muttered, before putting the car in gear and getting out of the nearly deserted parking lot.