#kitty therapy

Lets fill in some background that I'm too lazy to write out.

-Civil War did not and will not happen, but there has been a rift in the Avengers team by the time Tony finds kitty Peter (when Peter saves him from the mugger).

-This was caused by the ending of Tony and Steve's relationship. They had been together for a while, but then the Winter Soldier happened and Steve realized that Bucky was still alive.

-The fact that the Winter Soldier killed Tony's parents came to light, but under different circumstances that didn't lead to a direct, physical confrontation between the three.

-Steve decided to stay in Wakanda with Bucky, during the removal of Hydra's programming.

-In that time, even though he and Tony were still an item (though Tony was understandably upset that his boyfriend chose to be on another continent with hardly a phone call for weeks), Steve slept with Bucky.

-When Steve and Bucky return to the US, Steve breaks up with Tony.

-Tony feels used and that he had been a stand-in for Barnes all this time.

-When Steve says he wants Bucky to join the Avengers as well, it's the last straw for Tony.

-He blows up spectacularly and resigns (temporarily) from the Avengers.

-The team (except for Steve and Bucky) is allowed to keep their living spaces in the tower, but any and all Avengers business is to be had at the compound.

-Since they need to train regularly and have many missions, the team spends most of their time at the compound as a consequence. (Unintentionally isolating Tony from them. But don’t worry! He has kitty Petey now!)

-While the team isn't happy with Steve for the way he handled things with Tony, there is no bad blood between them. (This is the reason why inner team relationships are discouraged, after all. If one ends on bad terms, the whole team dynamic is in jeopardy. Steve is still a good team captain and a good friend, he just really messed up with Tony.)

-They understand that Tony needs some distance, and hope that time will heal this particular wound.

Okay! Let's start the story!

A loud and quite pitiful 'meow' had Tony looking up towards the huge bookshelf, upon entering the living room.

And there, right at the top of the almost three meter high shelf, sat Peter, his fluffy, little kitten, hunched in on himself.

"Petey, we talked about this. Don't climb stuff if you can't get down again."

The tiny kitty fixed his huge, adorable eyes on the billionaire and gave another pitiful sounding 'meow'.

Tony sighed in defeat.

"Don't know why they are called puppy eyes. You got those mutts beat by a mile. Hang on, Pete."

He quickly strode to the side of the bookshelf and grabbed the ladder.

"Why do I even own this thing? No one ever reads the books at the top. Just a stupid dust collector."

As if on cue, Peter let out a little sneeze. Tony smirked.

"If you rolled around up there, you better believe you’re gonna deal with that yourself. I'm not gonna try bathing you again. Last time was traumatizing enough."

The memory actually had him shivering a little. As soon as he had reached the top, Tony held out a hand for Peter, and the little kitten cuddled right into it. The billionaire's heart melted a little every time he realized how tiny his little Peter really was. He could probably close his hand entirely around the fluffy body.

After making his way back down, purring kitten carefully cradled against his chest, Tony headed for his lab.

"Alright Petey. We have a full day of mechanics ahead of us. First a few improvements to the propulsors on my suit. Don't worry, I'll not do any test runs with you there."

The first time Tony was testing out his suit's flight capabilities with the kitten in the room, Peter had run along the table he had been resting on and knocked everything off it. And he hadn't stopped until Tony's feet were safely back on the ground. A second and third flight test bore the same results. At first Tony had thought his kitten was scared of the suit, but Peter never had a problem when Tony tested any of the other functions. Only the flying and hovering above ground seemed to alarm the little fluff ball for whatever reason.

"Then we are gonna work out the kinks in the clear water system that were reported," he paused to scratch Peter under his chin, to which the kitten wiggled happily in his palm, "and then you can have a re-match with 'the captain'."

The name ignited an immediate response in Peter, as the kitten quickly turned around to look over his human's hand, ears perked up, little head swiveling from side to side, and a low hiss building up in his throat. Tony watched with an amused grin. 'The Captain' was what Tony had named the old roomba with the Captain America color scheme, that he had bought as a gag gift for Steve, when they had first gotten together. It was a pretty useless device, not having the motor power needed to suck up some of the bigger stuff on the floor, and a rather poor battery life. He should have probably thrown it out (or blasted it with a repulsor), when Steve came back to New York waving his new/old boyfriend in his face, and ended their relationship.

At first he had gotten some petty satisfaction in watching the roomba (that he mentally linked to Steve) roll around and clean up his dirty floor.

'That's right, suck it up you fucking cheater!'

When he had started taking Peter into the lab with him, and 'the captain' had started its bumbling roll among the floor, the little kitten had developed an instant hatred for the roomba.

Peter 'fought' the captain every time the thing came out of it's charging station. Whenever Peter felt he had come out the winner of these 'battles', he would hop on top of the captain and let himself be carried around for a victory lap. All the while looking as regal and proud as a tiny little ball of fluff was capable of.

It was as cute as it was hilarious and Tony had a few dozen videos of it saved away.

He resumed his chin scratches to calm the agitated kitty down again, and exited the elevator into his private lab.

"Now, Pete, don't you go climbing up the shelves again. That's where I put all the dangerous things, that adorable little furballs should not stick their whiskers in."

He pointed a threatening finger at Peter's nose. Peter batted at it with a paw.

"I mean it. Dum-E is armed with the fire extinguisher and he will spray you if you try to get your furry little butt any higher than the table."

Another small hiss. Peter liked playing with the robots, but he hated being sprayed with the fire extinguisher. (Fearing that the kitten would get sick from licking his fur clean, Tony had outfitted Dum-E with a special extinguisher filled with foamy cat shampoo)

The lab was actually not that hazardous of a place to be for a little kitten, after Tony had removed anything potentially dangerous from easy reach, that is.

All chemicals were stored in specially sealed and reinforced containers, that wouldn't break easily, no matter how many times Peter's paws pushed them over the table's edge.

The soldering equipment needed a certain sequence of button pushing before it activated, and even then a human adult hand was required to reach and press down on the trigger.

Most of the fine tuning on his engineering projects was done via holographic input, and his automated robot arms would do the heavy lifting behind a thick glass cylinder, that Peter couldn't climb.

Whenever Tony needed to do something himself, he had a specially made enclosure he would put Peter in, that would keep the feline safe from harm.

As Tony worked, Peter amused himself by climbing Butterfingers and U, being chased around by Dum-E, climbing up on Tony and rubbing his body along the man's beard, batting at any hologram the genius had pop up, and looking for all the little snacks Tony kept hiding for him in the nooks and crannies of the lab.

Peter was just about to take a well deserved nap on Tony's lap, when the man started looking around the table.

"Where is that stupid pen?"

Peter perked up at the words, jumped off his human's lap, and raced to one of the crates that held his toys. He dove in head first, shuffled around a little, and then emerged with a gold and red pen in his mouth. He raced back to his human, scrambled up the pant leg, hopped onto the table, and proudly dropped the pen beside his human's hand.

Tony's look was a mixture of stunned and incredulous.

"Did you steal and hide my pen?"

The little kitten bumped his head against the hand on the table.

"Oh, and now you want me to pet you for bringing back the pen you stole?"

Despite his words, Tony did just that.

"That's probably how the term 'cat burglar' was born. You adorable little thief."

Peter was a house cat and the tower had no mice. He had to find some way to bring his human little gifts, okay?

Tony didn't actually need to write anything down, he just liked twirling the pen between his fingers when trying to figure out a particular issue with his tech. He gave Peter another rub behind the ears and then picked up the pen. Peter settled back into his lap, kneaded his thighs a bit, walked in a little circle, and finally settled down for his nap.

The moment’s tranquility was broken by Pepper's sudden entrance.

"How come the owner of the world's leading tech-company never bothers to check his phone?"

She came to a stop before his work station and crossed her arms under her chest, an annoyed, but also worried frown on her face.

Tony lifted up his arms in a show of innocence and pointed at his lap.

"Sorry Pep. Petey has me pinned down, you see? Couldn't have gotten to my phone without waking him."

Pepper rolled her eyes.

"Yes, you seem incredibly regretful. Never mind that. Rhodey called. There is a mission on the horizon that needs Iron Man. The team is going to be here tomorrow, for further briefing, preparation and training."

Despite the many, many promises that he was not about to have a mental breakdown because his ex was coming back, Pepper had herded Tony (and Peter) out of the lab and into his living room. Then the fiery redhead had made him something to eat. A very poor attempt at fried vegetables with rice, that the billionaire had forced down his throat through pure will power. The woman was a great friend, a fantastic assistant and a marvelous CEO, but she could barely boil water.

Not that Tony would ever tell her that.

As he chewed his way through the mushy rice and cotton like broccoli (how did you even get vegetables to take on this kind of texture?), he couldn't help but envy Peter. The little kitten was happily munching on his chef cooked, kitty appropriate, fish dinner.

It had taken another hour after that to make the woman believe that he really was okay, before Pepper had finally left for the night. With the sudden absence of someone inquiring if he really was alright, Tony found himself asking the very same question.

Was he okay?

The feeling of tiny claws digging into his pant leg diverted his attention momentarily to the tiny brown kitten scrambling up into his lap.

"You realize these pants cost 900$, right? And here you are, poking them full of tiny holes and spreading your hair all over my general wardrobe."

Contrary to his words, he immediately scratched Peter's head once the kitten had made his way up and into his favorite spot.

"We are going to get some visitors tomorrow, Petey. This tower was actually not always this empty, you know? I mean besides the business departments and all the other S.I. staff."

Peter was apparently not finished with climbing his human, and proceeded to scale up the inventor's shirt. Tony kept a careful hand underneath his kitten, content to let Peter climb up on his own, but ready to catch him should he slip.

"They used to live here, you know? The Avengers. Earth's mightiest heroes. I was one of them. AM one of them, but you know this. You have seen my suit. I'm Iron Man, and therefore the best, right?"

Peter had made it up to Tony's chin and was rubbing his little body affectionately along his beard and cheek. Tony smiled.

"Right. Anyway, the rest of the team has been away for some time... I think they left about two weeks before I found you, and they are coming back tomorrow and I... I don't know how I feel about that."

He sighed deeply, as if finally admitting that part to himself, after having spent the last few hours denying any negative thoughts to Pepper.

Peter settled himself on his right shoulder and rubbed his head against the skin on his neck, letting out a tiny mewl that sounded almost prompting.

"It's not that I don't want them to come back. They are my friends, and I actually like having them around. Even Barton, and that guy is a menace, I tell you. If he tries kidnapping you into the vents, you go ahead and scratch up his stupid face, got it?"

He ran his fingers over Peter's small back, and the kitten started purring. Tony relaxed.

"You will like them. There is Rhodey, who is my best friend, actually. I met him in college and he... well, he has been looking out for me ever since. He is also an Air Force Colonel and probably the most level headed of all of us. He has a suit that is almost as cool as mine, but he buckled under the peer pressure and gave himself the moniker of Iron Patriot, which isn't even a fraction as cool as his previous 'War Machine'. Then there is Bruce, my science bro. He is the strongest Avenger and he might even be smarter than me, but we are not gonna tell him that. He also turns into a tall, green rage monster on occasion, but he is really just a big ol' marshmallow on the inside. Clint is our modern day version of Robin Hood, just without the stealing from the rich and giving to the poor thing. ... On second thought, scratch that. He always stole my fucking coffee and then drank it himself. As if he wasn't perfectly capable of brewing his own. So, yeah. Modern day Robin Hood with less altruistic intentions and only marginally better fashion sense. I'm not sure if Thor is on earth right now, so he might not make an appearance tomorrow. If he does, try not to climb him, okay? I know he is easily confused with a tree, and his stupid cape is probably a very big temptation for your little claws. But you just never know when that big lug decides to twirl his glorified hammer and light up like it's the fourth of July. And if Thor electrocutes my little Petey-Pie, I'm gonna blast his head off, Asgardian royalty or not. So we better avoid that and don't go climbing up any aliens, okay? Trust me, it's not worth it. His beard doesn't hold a candle to mine."

On cue, Peter rubbed his head against the billionaire's bearded chin, letting out a contented mewl.

"Natasha is a bit more difficult to describe. I'm pretty sure if Fury ever manages to clone her, he will jsut retire every other superhero and agent on the planet and fill all his mission teams with Black Widow clones and take over the world. ... Come to think of it, that's a very scary thought. Friday, remind me to hack into Shield later and see if they have any kind of cloning research in the works."

"Of course, boss."

Peter didn't startle anymore when Friday's disembodied voice sounded throughout the tower, but he had started batting his paw in the air whenever she spoke. Like he was waving hello. Tony thought it was precious.

"Anyway, Natasha is pretty badass, but I don't think you have anything to worry about. Just hit her with the eyes and she is gonna be a goner for sure."

He could actually picture Natasha stopping in the middle of kicking Clint's ass, just to give Peter a tummy rub. He would have to be vigilant from now on. He wouldn't put it past Barton and Romanoff to try and kidnap (catnap?) his little Petey. He was going to write an anti-kitty-napping code into Friday's mainframe.

"And that brings us to... to Steve."

His mood took a nose dive. There was the crux of the matter. Steve.

Peter, clever little kitty that he was, noticed the change in his human immediately, and bumped his head against Tony's cheek with a questioning meow.

"It's... complicated. Steve and I, we used to be in a relationship. Shoot, I haven't given you that particular talk yet, have I? So, when one mature cat really likes another mature cat, and they decide to have a bunch of little kittens together... wait, that's called a litter, right? Okay, so if these two cats really like each other, and are both of a consenting age, they might decide to have a litter of adorable little kittens together, you know, if one was in heat and it's like mating season... do cats have mating seasons? Actually, this comparison doesn't really work, because neither Steve nor I were trying to get each other pregnant... You know what? You are way too young for this kinda talk, mister."

He carefully took Peter into his hand and held the kitten in front of his face, so he could look directly into the big, round eyes.

"I do not want you getting any ideas of running off with any mangy, ruffian tom cat, or some little pussy hussy, that tries to lay their dirty, perverted paws on you, got it?"

Peter leaned over the rim of Tony's hand and licked him on the nose. Tony grinned.

"Okay. But we will be having a 'stranger, danger' talk later."

He then cradled the kitten in both hands and cuddled him into his chest.

"So, back to the Steve issue. We were together. As, in a relationship. All official like, with going on dates and pet names and everything. The media even had a ship name for us: Stony; which, not very original, but no one has ever accused mass media of originality, so what can you do. Anyway, Steve and I were a 'thing', and I thought we were a 'good thing', you know? I mean, we hadn't dropped the L-word yet, but we had been going steady for a pretty long time, and that was kinda a first for me, and... I liked it. Him. Us. Being an 'us' with Steve. And it was good. Comfortable. And then Barnes came back."

His hand stopped petting Peter at the memory, and the kitten softly tapped his paw against Tony's thumb. When Tony looked down, he once again couldn't stop the thought that Peter must somehow understand him, because right then, the little kitten was looking up at him with an almost too human expression of worry and sympathy. He smiled at him and resumed his petting.

"Long story short, Steve slept with Barnes and broke up with me. And, look, it's not like I don't have sympathy for the guy. The things Hydra did to him and made him do... Suddenly being free of all that and having your best friend there with you...  And I understand Steve's side of things as well. Kinda. Those feelings he has for Barnes, they probably weren't anything new. But back in his time, same sex relationships weren't simply frowned upon, but downright illegal. Then there was the war and the serum and everything else... They probably never really had the time or opportunity to realize exactly what they felt for each other. And then suddenly Steve wakes up decades in the future; and everything is different and he gets put on this team of super idiots and there is fighting and aliens and more fighting and in the midst of all of this, there is the cultural shock of having just skipped like two whole generations..."

Tony had been thinking a lot about it, actually. He wasn't always honest with himself, and he wasn't always good with his emotions. It was something Rhodey had said to him a long time ago. That sometimes, in order to understand our own feelings, we had to understand the feelings of those around us.

And with Peter's calming influence, he had been thinking a lot about Barnes and Steve and himself and their relationships.

At first, fresh after the break up, Tony had just been angry. Hurt, too, but that was so much harder to face than the anger had been, and so he had settled on that instead.

After the team had left for the compound (and Tony understood that his personal relationship drama could not stand in the way of the Avengers availability for missions and their need to keep up their training regimen.), he had locked himself in his lab for three days, trying to tinker his anger and hurt away. Then Pepper had lost her patience with him and hauled the genius out of there and made him see a therapist and sleep and eat (not in that order, though).

Any protestations that he didn't need to see a shrink just because his boyfriend broke up with him, were waved away by the woman ("Someone taking care of your mental health has been long overdue.")

It hadn't helped. The therapist and the food and the sleep, non of it had helped and Tony just got angrier and angrier at his own inability to let it all fucking go. (He had missed his Iron Man suit, and being an active Avengers, but even Tony, as much as he hated to admit it, knew that he hadn't been in the right frame of mind for it)

But then had come that fateful night, where Tony had taken his therapists advice to take a peaceful, relaxing stroll around some neighborhood. It hadn't been peaceful, and it hadn't been relaxing, and Tony had been pissed all the more for it. And then he almost got shot by some two bit thug. But he didn't regret it one bit, because those were the circumstances that brought Peter into his life.

Ever since the little kitten had launched himself at Tony's almost murderer and saved the billionaire's life, things had started getting better. Having a tiny, fluffy creature to take care of and adore, had left Tony no time to dwell on his anger. Watching as the kitten explored his new home with too much enthusiasm and too little coordination, had made the man smile and laugh more in those first few days, than he had in weeks (months?).

Cuddling up with Peter anywhere and having the little fluffball purr up a storm, never failed to relax Tony and often lulled him into a deep, and thankfully dreamless, sleep. He quit going to his therapist and started taking Peter with him wherever he went. Pepper wasn't impressed the first time he showed up to a board meeting, with the kitten neatly tucked into his shirt's breast pocket. But she had quickly given in when she saw that Tony actually paid attention during the meeting, and was much more open to listening to the boards suggestions, while he was playing with Peter.

He talked to Peter all the time, about everything. S.I. business, new projects, what he thought about any particular book or movie, his robots, his suit, absolutely anything that came to mind. Aside from the Avengers. Until now.

"So, really, I get it. Those two are probably some kind of star-crossed, destined to be, once in a lifetime, lovers. And I don't even begrudge them finally being together. I just... I hate how it happened. I hate that Steve all but ignored me when Barnes came back from the dead. I hate that he slept with him while we were still an item. I hate that it made me feel like I had been a stand-in for Barnes all along. I hate that I have hardly talked to any of the team since they relocated to the compound. I hate-" He sighed. "I hate that I don't hate him. I kind of want to. I feel like that would be easier, you know?"

Peter just looked at him with his big, adorable eyes and laid his little paw on Tony's chest, right where the genius' heart was beating. Really, sometimes it felt like the kitten understood every word.

"I miss him, but not in the way one misses a significant other. I miss arguing about reading the newspaper on my tablet versus reading it on paper. I miss confusing him with pop culture references he doesn't know about. And I miss him getting on my case about spending too much time in the lab. But I'm not too hung up about all the couples' stuff. Not saying I didn't enjoy the se-  wait, this isn't appropriate for young kitty ears. It's not like I didn't like our 'intimacy', but looking back on it now, I think Steve and I, we were always more of a 'friends with benefits' type of relationship, with more weight placed on the 'friends' part of the deal. Don't get me wrong, I'm still angry about Steve cheating on me like that, and how it all went down, but I think I can forgive him. I mean, obviously we will need to have it out, first. We didn't really get to the 'break up talk' before I pretty much kicked everyone out, and I guess that's partly on me. But, I want to forgive him. So, if Steve and I manage to clear the air between us, and all that sentimental stuff, ... yeah."

Peter had climbed back up to Tony's shoulder and lovingly rubbed his head against every part of his human's face he could reach. Tony laughed.

"Love you, too, Petey. You are the best kitten in the world, you know that? I will tell Vincent to make you something extra special for breakfast tomorrow."

Tony brought his hand up to massage his fingers into the soft fur, while Peter burrowed himself into the man's neck and purred until they both fell asleep.

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tbc

Okay, let me first say, I understand if people might be a bit confused over Tony's seemingly easy forgiveness here, but I hope I managed to portray that in this story, Tony and Steve's previous relationship isn't meant to be the main plot point. It's actually not even meant to be a particularly important plot point. The story's main plot is the relationship between Tony and Peter, and Peter being an adorable little ball of fluff. :-)

Also, I didn't want Tony to be completely broken up because things with Steve went south. Matter of fact is, romantic relationships sometimes don't last. They sometimes don't work out. And sometimes someone messes up. Steve cheated on Tony. That was a douche move, no question. But I didn't want to just bash his character. Steve didn't cheat on Tony because he didn't value him, or because he is just is a super asshole. These are very special circumstances, and things didn't go great, and Steve isn't perfect, and he messed up. But he didn't do it with malicious intent, and he is still a good guy, and he will try his best to repair the trust between him and Tony.

Tony is gonna get a bit of funny, petty revenge on Steve, though. With Peter's help, of course. ;-)

Sidenote: I would really like to know your opinion about Tony's aborted efforts to have 'The Talk', with kitty Peter. :-) :-) :-) I hope it was as funny to read, as it was to write!

Please tell me if tagging didn’t work, or if I forgot anyone!