Work Text:
Tony heard a hiss, and his hair stood up.
It was weird because he could feel his hair standing up. His back arched without command, puffing himself up to be bigger. He hissed back, and as weird as this experience was he just hoped it worked.
No, of course he wasn’t that lucky. The cat prowled closer, its eyes flashing.
Ordinarily a cat wasn’t enough to scare Tony, but then ordinarily Tony wasn’t a cat himself.
He loathed magic.
Tony spat and he swiped his claws, but he was smaller than his challenger. And he wasn’t used to fighting as a cat. Give him a human body and he could tackle this, no problem, but Tony learned quickly that he wasn’t as experienced or desperate as these alley cats were when it came to fighting over food.
Tony wasn’t willing to lose an ear over what might be in this trash can, but this other cat had already done that and gotten a few more scrapes besides.
But he was hungry. He’d wasted the first few hours figuring out he wasn’t in New York City anymore - no subways - or any other major US city layout that he knew. He hadn’t ruled the US out completely, since he wasn’t sure that he simply couldn’t hear or read languages properly anymore because of the whole cat-thing. Though he couldn’t seem to speak ‘cat’ either. All he’d managed to do was get dirty enough that no one tossed him scraps. He wasn’t looking forward to figuring out how to wash himself.
He hissed and swiped out again, and the other cat darted off.
“Huh,” Tony said, and it came out as a meow. He hadn’t expected that to work.
Tony’s senses went off right as something was descending on him. He scrambled to escape, but he wasn’t fast enough. He was scruffed by the back of his neck and hauled into the air, his entire body going limp.
He couldn’t move, even to wiggle to try to escape. His whole body was paralyzed.
A deep, warm voice was speaking to him, but Tony couldn’t understand the words. It was meant to be soothing though, and Tony’s panic receded a little bit. At least his captor didn’t seem to want to harm him.
Tony still didn’t appreciate being dangled in the air as they moved up the fire escape, though. If he was dropped, he hoped he was at least cat enough to land on his feet.
Up and up they went, and then the man was climbing through a window and bringing Tony with him.
Tony didn’t know whether he was getting adopted or if he was really in trouble.
The man kept speaking in a low, comforting tone as he kept Tony in one hand then filled a shallow dish of water with the other. He set both Tony and the dish down at the same time, and then backed away.
Tony’s gaze darted to the window. It was still open, and even if this body was new he thought he could make the jump up.
But there was water, and Tony was so thirsty.
He inched toward the dish, but the man wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. He was opening a cupboard and fishing something out, and Tony didn’t know that he could trust his cat-instincts since he’d gotten scruffed already, but he’d at least have some warning.
He lapped at the water, droplets splashing all over his face. Tony winced, but he was too thirsty to figure out a better method. He lapped, glad he no one from the team was watching him at the moment, and felt bad about all the water that was spilling to the floor.
Then the water was gone, and Tony was still so thirsty.
Another dish was set down, another bowl of water. Tony raced over and lapped at that one, feeling pleased he’d managed to get picked up by such a helpful human.
Then another dish, and this one was food.
Beef jerky, Tony recognized, though only a few pieces. Well, it was certainly better than the nothing Tony had managed so far. He snapped up the first piece and started chewing, the meat sticking in his teeth.
The man said more things that Tony couldn’t understand, but Tony liked the soft and warm way he said them.
Tony swallowed and snapped up another piece of jerky to chew. The pieces were already torn into smaller chunks, but Tony gnawed at them until he could be certain he wouldn’t hack them back up again.
The water dishes were refilled again, and then there was another dish of food set down before Tony. This one contained pieces of raw chicken his caretaker must have just cut up, again small pieces.
Tony’s human brain turned at the idea of eating it, but his cat nose twitched. He scarfed the pieces down, the fresh meat parting easily with his teeth. He heard the chiding from the man, but the dish wasn’t taken away.
When all the food was gone, Tony sat back and licked his paw. Then he realized what he was doing and put his paw back down. He wasn’t ready for that level of cat yet.
The man cleared Tony’s empty food dishes away, but left the water bowls. Tony almost felt guilty for being so useless and not being able to help, but it wasn’t like Tony could wash the dishes in his current form. Though maybe something like that, recorded on video, would grab enough attention online that one of the team might come looking...
The man sat on the floor, facing Tony. Tony watched him, ears pricked and alert. He removed his right glove and held out his fingers for Tony to sniff.
Out of curiosity more than anything, Tony padded forward to take a smell. There was sweat and salt, and then something else that made Tony sneeze.
The man chuckled and wiped his fingers on his pants, and then offered his hand out to Tony again. Tony sniffed and then, with those fingers tickling his whiskers, he leaned forward enough to let the man scratch that itch.
“Knew you used to be someone’s.”
“What?” Tony answered, his answer coming out as a shocked meow.
The man raised an eyebrow. “Ah, you are used to English?”
Tony meowed in agreement as he batted at the man’s hand. So he could still understand, which was good. He just hadn’t recognized the language of whatever country he’d ended up in, which wasn’t the end of the world.
“Where are your previous owners now, hm? Why would they have dumped you in Romania?”
He scratched behind Tony’s ears and that felt good. So good. Tony arched into the touch and forgot, for a moment, what was happening other than getting those fingers to itch just a bit to the left. Ah, there. That felt wonderful.
“Why did they leave you on the street, a sweet thing like you?”
Tony’s eyes half-closed. He was losing track of the words as the man worked his magic fingers along Tony’s scalp.
“No collar.” He tsked. “Did you escape? Are they looking for you? You are too well-fed to have been on the street long.”
“Long enough, let me tell you,” Tony replied, his words translated into cat.
The man chuckled at Tony’s urgent meowings. “Sorry little one. I can’t understand you. Do you speak English?”
“Funny you should ask.”
“You have a home here with me, if you like. My name is -”
The man hesitated, his eyes growing dark. Tony batted at his knee with concern, and the man shook his head and gave Tony a smile.
“Bucky.” The man took a deep breath. “My name is Bucky. How about I call you...Shadow?”
Tony twisted his face in displeasure. Just to be sure Bucky knew he didn’t like it, Tony sneezed.
“No? How about Cinder?”
Another sneeze.
“Abyss?”
Dramatic, Tony thought. But no. He sneezed again.
“Going to call you Sneeze if you keep doing that.”
Tony yoweled his displeasure at that name, and Bucky laughed. It caught in his chest, like Bucky wasn’t used to laughing, but it still managed to work its way free.
“How about Soot?”
It wasn’t the worst name, and Tony wasn’t sure Bucky was going to pull out something better. He sighed and pushed his head into Bucky’s hand for more scratches.
“Soot is acceptable, alright.”
Tony was glad he’d at least managed to find a bright human. That was good. And Bucky was very good at the scratching and petting, that was much nicer than fighting off alleycats over trash.
And maybe Bucky had a phone or a computer lying about where Tony could send a quick message to someone -
Bucky’s left arm came to scratch Tony’s other side, but something was off. Tony jerked away, looking at the glove. Skin was better than leather apparently, Tony noticed, but even then there was something not quite right.
“Ah, my mistake,” Bucky said, his voice low and soothing. His movements were cautious as he reached for the glove. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to be touched by it either.”
Bucky’s glove came off to reveal a metal hand. Tony was in awe as he leaned closer for a better view. There were fully articulated finger joints, made up of sections of plates. Bucky seemed to have perfect control as he slowly extended his hand for Tony to sniff.
Grease and metal scents hit Tony’s nose, but those smells comforted even as they intrigued him. Bucky’s metal arm was high-tech enough that Tony should’ve known about its existence, or at the very least known the creators. Maybe he did. Who would’ve created such a thing?
He batted at the hand, trying to get Bucky to demonstrate more movement.
Bucky pulled the hand back, not understanding.
“Hey, come back here with that,” Tony ordered as he followed after it, climbing over Bucky’s lap to be able to see.
“Oh, alright. Just remember curiosity killed the cat,” Bucky murmured as he tugged up his sleeve and brought his arm back for Tony’s inspection.
“Satisfaction brought it back,” Tony finished as he analyzed the arm. He had a hundred questions he wanted to ask, but of course he could ask none of them.
Bucky reached out and scratched Tony’s head with those metal fingers. It was different than with Bucky’s human hand, with the weight and the texture, but not a bad different, Tony decided.
He would accept it.
“Oh,” Bucky said with a soft gasp.
Tony realized that his chest was rumbling as Bucky pet him with the metal hand, and Tony blinked in shock. He had no clue how he was doing it.
But Bucky’s eyes were wide and hopeful, and he went back to petting Tony now with both hands.
That felt even better. Tony tried to ignore the fact that he was literally purring, and just enjoyed the attention.
Maybe being stuck as a cat wasn’t so bad.