Chapter Text
"You have got to be kidding me," Tony said, flying down West 47th in Iron Man, looking down at the swarming army of small... really, very small... creatures chasing screaming people around the Diamond District. "CATS? What the hell?" He felt personally insulted. It's got to be some sort of joke on him. There'd been enough 'catty' headlines since the charity banquet where he unfortunately fell asleep after the lobster thermidor and woke up purring into the microphone instead of giving his speech. "What kind of supervillain herds cats?"
"A crazy one!" Clint said over the Avengers' comm link. He was on top of a taxi shooting arrow nets at clumps of cats. "One of the little buggers pissed on me!"
"I never thought I'd see the day there was too much pu..."
"Finish that word, Stark," Natasha said from where she was trapped on top of a lamppost with tabbies hissing below, "and live to regret it."
"Fine, fine." Tony didn't know what to do. He really hadn't got the heart to blast cats with repulsors. Not that it would do much good since there were so many of them. He landed in the street and waded against the tide of fleeing people, noticing that the cats hadn't actually caught anyone and appeared to be simply driving them away from the diamond exchanges. "Cap? Bruce?" Tony looked around and saw a familiar green figure... sitting on the sidewalk, buried in cats. "Bruce!"
The Hulk looked up at Tony as he ran toward him, cats scattering well away from Iron Man's boots. "FUZZY," The Hulk said, with a wide and happy grin, petting a particularly large cat with one finger. His other hand was holding Captain America's shield on his lap. The shield was full of cats, all purring at him. "HULK NO SMASH FUZZIES."
Tony sighed. "Yeah, all right. Where's Steve?"
The Hulk pointed one massive green finger down the street. Tony looked. "Oh, God." Cap was backed up against a blank brick wall, surrounded by hundreds of kittens. He couldn't move without squashing them even if he did an Olympic record standing broad jump, and hey, Captain America does NOT squash kittens.
"How ever is this my life?" Tony tried to take a step, but during the minute he'd stopped cats had gathered so close around him that if he moved, or turned on the boot jets, he'd be making catsup. They stared at him unblinkingly from blue, yellow and green eyes. He's not Captain America. But still...it would be...icky.
"Tony!" Steve shouted, "Don't take off the suit!"
"Why would I..." And then Tony thought about it. Maybe he could convince them he was a big cat and this was his territory, and scare them off. They couldn't smell him through the suit, and scent is important to cats. And it wasn't as if the suit was doing him any good. He triggered the auto-disassemble sequence.
"TONY, NO!" Steve shouted as the metal began turning itself back into a suitcase, leaving Tony dressed in black jeans and Black Sabbath US tour 1978 shirt (it was his lucky shirt- the one he was wearing when he didn't DIE in SPACE, so sue him, he wore it a lot. Jarvis is always bidding on E-bay for more. He has a closet full, but too much luck is never enough, in his opinion).
When the suit was off, the cats sniffed at Tony suspiciously. "SSSSCat," he hissed, and was gratified when they flinched and began edging away from him.
"I prefer the Stray Cats."
Tony jerked his head up at the voice, registering it as husky, sexy, and very, very female even before his gaze went up to eventually reach her black leather cat-eared mask covered face but only after a very long fractional second spent absorbing the details of black leather boots, black leather clad very nicely curved hips, black leather belt loaded down with kinky looking objects, black leather catsuit top stretched over...well, stretched over...and she had a black bullwhip in one hand and a cat o' nine tails (yes, it was black, too) in the other. He was sensing a theme, here. "Yeah... I can see that. So... you're the one behind all this?" Tony started walking toward her, angling in casually.
"What can I say? I like cats. And pretty things." She pointed to a plastic bag full of cut diamonds tied to her belt which Tony hadn't noticed. In all fairness, he's seen diamonds far more often than black leather clad dominatrixes.... well, maybe not FAR more often, but more often.
Tony didn't know how she was controlling the cats, but he figured if he could get close enough to grab her, he'd find out. He was almost within reach when she dropped the cat o'nine tails, pulled something loose from her belt and flung it in his face, where it burst into something powdery. He gasped as it hit his face and he involuntarily breathed in deeply. He fell to his knees and looked up at her. "I love you. I would do anything for you."
She smiled. "So, the rumors are true." She sashayed up to him. He pressed his head against her hip and she stroked his hair. "I think I'll adopt you, at least for a few hours."
Tony half-closed his eyes and purred.
"DUCK, TONY!" Steve shouted, which confused the hell out of Tony, because no, not a duck.
***
Tony opened his eyes. He was lying on dirty sidewalk. There were no cats in sight. The Cat-woman was unconscious and tied up, with Natasha looking at her in annoyance. He thought. Natasha's expressions weren't easy to read. The Hulk was catless, and looking wistful. Steve was holding his shield and looking down at him. Clint was picking up the broken pieces of one of his knock-out arrows.
Tony scowled at Clint. "You could have waited a few hours."
"No matter how much cats fight, there always seems to be plenty of kittens." - Abraham Lincoln