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Author's Summary:
In which Tony picks up a stray cat, Bucky's cat goes missing, and Steve just wishes these two doofuses would stop pining for each other where he has to see it.
My Note:
Ordinarily, I'm not a fan of shipping Bucky with Tony, but this is a cute fic with a starring role for Alpine as an inadvertent matchmaker.
Excerpt:
“Tony, please tell Bucky that ‘come over and pet my cat’ is definitely an invitation for at least sex and probably for murder.”
Tony nearly dropped his plate. “What?”
Sam was snickering and pretending not to be involved, and Bucky was flushed and not looking at any of them, so Steve sighed and rolled his eyes and turned to face Tony fully.
“Bucky temporarily lost his cat a couple weeks ago, and when he was getting advice on how to find her, he ended up meeting this guy on some cat forum. And they’ve been exchanging cat advice the past few weeks, only now - Eddie was it?” He turned to Bucky for confirmation, and was promptly ignored. “Eddie has invited him over to ‘pet his cat.’”
He managed to inflect a truly disturbing amount of innuendo into that, especially for Captain America, and if Tony had been any less distracted, he would have been making fun of him for it. As it was, he was staring wide eyed at Bucky, feeling a little light-headed.
“You... lost your cat?” he repeated weakly.
Bucky’s head shot up at that, eyes wide and almost as panicked looking as Tony felt. “Only for a couple days,” he said quickly. “Sorry, I should have told you about her sooner, probably. I just kind of found her, and took her in, and she’s really good, I promise, she’s quiet, and clean, and really sweet...”
It was probably the most words he’d spoken to Tony at once for as long as he’d known him.
