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You and the swan will float upon
A cloud of pink ice cream
Where every star is a candy bar
And the moon is a marshmallow dream
Cotton Candy Land - Elvis Presley
The cat’s coat was likely white, originally. For a moment, Tony thanked the stars that he didn’t have that sort of a problem.
The likeliness of the cat’s white coat was at best a guess at this point, as the cat was covered in dirt. Some tufts of furs clearly were clumped together in mud and something else that looked suspiciously like dried blood. There were patches of bald spots. Tony thought he spotted a fresh puncture wound or two, and those could get nasty infections if they were from wild alley catfights. The cat had three legs, missing the left forearm from the shoulder stump down. All in all, Tony felt this cat could do with a rescue, a vet, and probably food. Lots of food.
It didn’t act like a starved, dodgy prey, however.
Tony watched the not-white cat confidently scale one of the stone pillars of the ornamental iron fence surrounding the garden of the Stark Manor grounds. Once it reached the top of the stone pillar, it laid low, hackles melting down close to the flat stone surface, where it surveyed the grounds for the next hour.
Normally the Stark Manor grounds did not interest strays - there were no unattended garbage cans, sources of scraps, or much compassion here, really. Happy kept a hawk-like eye on the groundskeepers and the security guards, maintaining a tightly kept, clean property. (Tony sometimes wished they wouldn’t keep everything so tidy - he would love to roll around in the leaf piles sometimes in the fall or catch some frogs in the spring.)
When the hour was up, the not-white cat hopped off the stone pillar at a precise moment of the groundskeeper’s lunch hour. It hid behind a shrub as two of the security guards made their checkpoint of the hour, and then, blink, and you miss it, the cat made its way around the corner of one of the garden boulders, 2 yards closer to the Stark Manor within 7 minutes of its starting point. Tony watched the scrappy-looking cat manage to navigate the Stark Manor grounds security better than many of the wild animals Tony’s seen from his basket at the window. Tony had no idea what the not-white cat was doing, approaching the Stark grounds with such intentional movements.
Tony’s vantage point was a bay window, behind which, Tony’s cat tree was customized to lay at the right angle and the right height for Tony to enjoy the look-out from his shift room. Tony’s feelings were very conflicted when it came to the shift room. Technically, Tony built his own shift room. But it was under protest! Building said shift room meant that he would have to acknowledge the mandatory biological need for his body to full-shift at least once every 4 weeks. Total bullshit, if you asked Tony. He could avoid shifting for two years straight if he, with a human mind that was built on logical decisions and history-based civil mannerism, wanted!
Not that anybody asked.
In fact, Dr. Cho specifically mandated Tony to set up a shift room like every good little registered shifter, and to go through with the mandatory full-shift every 4 weeks. A complete insult to Tony’s right to destroy his own body, as far as Tony was concerned. Dr. Cho and Pepper got on ridiculously well ever since Dr. Cho mandated the regular full-shift to stop Tony from completely ruining his health.
The end result was Tony was stuck in this little (feline-safe, Artificial Intelligence managed, likely one of the most technologically advanced shifter rooms in existence) hell room for the remaining 4 days because of his past two years of stubborn denial. Dr. Cho had said this recent series of irregular full shifts was essentially Tony’s body wreaking vengeance on Tony’s decisions. Last time he had to go through this unexpected full shift, Tony escaped his own shift room, the Stark Manor, and the grounds security.
He was making A Statement. Well, in hindsight he thought that he was - did it for the rebellion against the system and making a statement about being able to do what he wanted with his own life. In truth, Tony didn’t remember much of what had happened last week, when he dashed out of the Stark grounds with an undignified yowl, and came back smelling like 8 different alley cats and a garbage dump.
The cat’s tail (a bitten, thin strip of patchy off-white) was high in the air as it made a beeline for Tony’s window. In his mouth was a big, fat mouse that Tony hadn’t seen before when watching the cat infiltrate his property. Up close, Tony could see that the not-white cat had the most beautiful grey-blue eyes and looked determined as it trotted right up to the little raised hill of budding lavenders just beneath Tony’s bay window.
It watched Tony right back for a moment longer, before setting the fat mouse down in front of Tony. The cat sat down, looking self-assured like its not-white coat was a king’s mantle instead of battered mane covered in battle wounds and mud.
Oh .
Tony’s ear flicked.
He’s here for me , Tony thought, as his own black tail fluffed up in interest.
The biggest difference between alley cats and housecats, Bucky thought as he watched the black cat behind the bay window meow sweetly at him, was that house cats meowed like they were humans talking. Alley cats hardly meowed like this, at least, not to other alley cats. That dulcet sound that house cats made, it’d tell an alley cat that you’re easy pickings.
Things were different, when you shifted fully. Depending on how long you’ve been in full shift, there is an upward curve that can plateau at one point starting from when you go feral. A shifter going feral was bad news - like a real, 100% animal which does not remember its shifter identity, or how to get back in touch with its humanity. Bucky would know. He’s only recently beginning to come out of about 7 years of feral state after running across this one scent that he had never come across before.
The entire experience of being knocked off of a train, crashing down a cliff, losing an arm, and being given rescue surgery was a blur. Somewhere between those things, Bucky supposed he went from humanoid to full shift - likely during the fall, as his instincts would have known that he’d have a much higher chance of survival with a smaller body mass. Bucky only remembered flashbacks of the fall, of waking briefly to a blurry view of lights and masked people bent over him, terror, scents of others’ terror, and eventual escape. He just didn’t make any of those decisions consciously and had forgotten entirely his humanity for a very long time, surviving the alley cat life.
It was fairly recent - when a housecat (scents of candy-scented hygiene products, luscious and groomed long black mane, not a speck of brown in the circle of white at its chest, and buffed claws. It was ridiculous. How could any cat survive with those smooth-tipped claws) came wandering into the street alley with its tail high and golden eyes wide and curious. The cat had smelled hungry and was meowing like he expected someone to feed him in response. Bucky had watched the black cat completely miss the two other alley cats that were also watching in their hideouts and make an adorable attempt at tackling a rat that scrambled through a pile of garbage. The only effect of the attempt to hunt was to make some loud clanking with the garbage cans and to give the rest of the rats plenty of time to escape.
The fluffy housecat jumped back as though startled by the chain reaction like he’d never hunted real rats before. It was frankly a little embarrassing to watch, but Bucky was more concerned that the other two alley cats were clearly starting to get ideas. The tabby and the shorthair were both hunched low in stalking positions, one atop the low-riding concrete wall that fenced off one side of the alley, the other one making a completely silent landing on one of the garbage cans. The housecat was evidently more fluff than muscles, and that well-groomed coat was likely to suffer some not-pretty dents to it if a fight really got started.
Even at that point, Bucky had not remembered his shifter identity. He’d been preoccupied with the cloying scent of the housecat and was focusing on running the other two alley cats off with a proper warning hiss and arched back before they got into anything with the soft, docile housecat. It was necessary, in Bucky’s opinion at the time, because the housecat, for some reason, didn’t seem to know how to cat.
Throughout the entire fight between Bucky and the two alley cats, the housecat was just sitting on the side, observing wide-eyed, with its tail tip thumping the pavement in interest. It was as if what was happening was not a battle of posture that could become a really ugly fight soon, but a game that the housecat had never seen before.
The housecat curiously ventured close to Bucky after the alley cats ran off. In retrospect, it was probably the scent of the housecat that had brought Bucky out of his feral mindset during that encounter. Bucky had led the housecat along the streets of New York for three days after that day, showing the lost housecat how to find food and how to dodge stray dogs and Animal Control. Bucky’d brought the housecat to Bucky’s favourite spots for basking, secret tree by a park pond where they could scratch the bark and catch frogs, and did his best to keep the housecat as pristine as when the cat had first shown up in that alleyway.
The housecat’s mane reminded Bucky of cotton candy that he’d licked out of packaging in the garbage before. Even though the housecat didn’t seem to know what to do with other cats, it learned quickly, tiny pink tongue reciprocating Bucky’s grooming efforts until they were both a purring puddle in the shared sunspot.
By the time Bucky’s human brain started to come back online, the housecat was gone. It took Bucky another 6 days of agitated behaviours to deal with the returning human mind that thought of and reacted to things very differently from his feline mind. It didn’t actually fully connect in his mind, at that point yet, Bucky was a shifter, or that the housecat must also be a shifter, to have the unique and devastating appeal of Bucky’s soulmate. Bucky had only began to realize how badly he needed to get the housecat back, and spent all hours of his next few days tracking the housecat down despite the scent trail having been long gone.
Tony woke up to what felt like a heated blanket weighed down with bricks against the skin on his back. He turned blearily to the sight of what looked like a very rugged stranger, kneeling up, blanket sliding dangerously low over his hips, and staring down at his own hand(s) – or, rather, the lack of on the left side. From his angle, Tony couldn’t quite see the situation on the man’s left shoulder, but he sure hoped the man didn’t wake up with Tony and surprise! Your arm disappeared!
The man turned at the sound of Tony sitting up, and Tony was immediately drawn to intense grey-blue eyes that gave him a flashback to the sight of the white cat outside his window. Tony always had a lot of holes in his memories after a full shift, which was another reason he didn’t like to go through full shifts regularly. Tony's gaze dropped lower, and he groaned - by the stars, why couldn't he remember enjoying that ?
"Thank you!" Tony said to the room at large, hands clapped together like a prayer to the deities above, as GQ Hobo stared at Tony like Tony had lost his mind.
"...what?" GQ Hobo asked, sounding a little unsure of himself.
Tony flopped back down onto his back, a satisfied grin slowly spreading over his lips as he noticed GQ Hobo's eyes dropping down to the rest of Tony's skin in turn. "You're my shift present, aren't you? I knew Pep wouldn't let me suffer alone this time -- er, actually it's not like her to hire -- or maybe you're a shift coach? Is that a thing? FRI, is that a thing?" Tony asked the ceiling, and watched as GQ Hobo nearly jumped out of his skin at the ceiling answering back with a dutiful, 'you rejected every shift coach Miss Potts had screened and lined up for you, Boss.'
"What the ---" GQ Hobo's eyes were wide, and his hand automatically shot to the side like it was trained to grab something in response to being startled. The next Tony knew, GQ Hobo (speed like a true feline) dove for Tony over their tangled mess of blankets, covering Tony with his own body in a way that was reminiscent of some very dedicated bodyguards that Tony had over the years when faced with bomb threats.
Tony paused.
"---so uhh, not a shift coach, huh?" his comment was muffled by GQ Hobo's long hair in his mouth. The solid line of GQ Hobo’s body was tough to ignore as there was really only a sheet between the two of them. And really. What was the point of one excellent night if Tony couldn’t remember this?! “----That was FRIDAY, my A.I. She won’t harm you. We’re nice people. Say Hi FRI.”
‘Hi Boss!’ chirped the voice from the ceiling.
A beat later as no threats followed, GQ Hobo got up somewhat sheepishly. “...sorry.” — as though protecting Tony with a full (naked) body tackle was the wrong thing to do.
“No it’s … fine actually… totally… fine…” Tony offered distractedly while examining GQ Hobo up close. The beard had to have been growing for years , same as the hair, and there were truly no signs of grooming despite it all still being quite clean. Aside from the obvious shoulder stump, there were a couple of still fresh injuries (mostly scratches, though Tony was certain those were made by something much smaller than his fingernails) that suggested this guy might not have been spending much time in safe shelters. Tony didn’t even know how the guy ended up inside Tony’s extremely secured shift room. Tony designed the space himself to prevent, at least up to 99.9%, the possibility of unauthorized personnel (read: paparazzi or kidnappers) from any chances of spotting Tony in his full shift form.
“Look, I, uh, don’t remember much from—-” Tony gestured to the obvious lack of clothing between the two of them, “----but do you want some food first?”
It was weird - for Tony.
He usually had the whole one-night stands routine down pat, and they didn’t have to have this awkward, questionable silence the morning after. He certainly had never encountered a morning after where none of his partner’s clothes made it through the night. It was as though GQ Hobo marched into the Stark property fully naked. They had to spend an awkward 20 minutes in Tony’s walk-in closet to figure out something that would fit GQ Hobo’s size (a feat, because 90% of Tony’s clothes were tailored to Tony’s use, and even his mixed martial arts sweats were a little tight on GQ Hobo.)
The more bits and pieces of evidence put together, the more it all painted a picture of last night that Tony really didn’t want to accept. Tony was in a full shift, a state in which no clothes were involved. GQ Hobo woke up with no clothes in sight, and having somehow gotten into Tony’s shift room built for a cat. And there were what looked more and more like cat scratches all over GQ Hobo’s body. Tony winced, giving GQ Hobo a skeptical glance, as the man quietly scarfed down three bowls of scrambled eggs, bacon, milk and cereal (the four items that Tony knew how to put together and not kill anyone in the process.)
“Do you remember anything?” Tony asked, watching an impressive milkstache form over GQ Hobo’s mess of a beard.
The response was negative. In fact, it appeared GQ Hobo not only did not remember last night, but actually had trouble remembering his own name, where he came from, and when he last had a sufficient meal like this. (By the stars, GQ Hobo really was a hobo. Send help.)
Eventually, Tony decided he’d been staring at the milkstache long enough that he really ought to do something about it – which was how they ended up in Tony’s bathroom. GQ Hobo sat on a chair that Tony had placed on the spacious bathroom tiles, and patiently watched Tony with those intense eyes as Tony puttered about with his own beard trimming set. (Within the first few minutes, they’d established with GQ Hobo’s feline claws popping out that no actual razor was to be brought near GQ Hobo.)
“You’re staring.” Tony commented neutrally, as tufts of coarse beard fell onto the bathroom tiles.
“You smell familiar.” GQ Hobo, who was starting to clean up really, really nicely, responded. It was a simple statement, but it didn’t sound like something a human being normally said. Tony supposed shifters could utilize their creature senses while staying humanoid, but for him to do that, it’d take conscious effort. This guy was apparently still half-animal, despite looking humanoid.
“Maybe that’d help us figure out how we know each other.” Tony offered, admiring his own work after the thick beard was trimmed down to an even scruff. GQ Hobo, true to GQ Model spirit, had a very attractive square jaw. “I mean…. You don’t remember…. I don’t remember…. FRI’s surveillance image only showed that you showed up fully shifted and got in through my cat door, but that was because I let you in. So obviously you’re familiar to me too. Kitty memory anyway.”
Tony wasn’t a barber, so after clearing away the thick beard, he just trimmed the long hair up to just below the man’s jawline so they could brush out the knotted ends and tie it up into a knot for convenience. Plus, with a face like that, GQ Hobo could handle a nice man bun no problem.
GQ Hobo just continued to silently look up at Tony from his chair. It was when the man slow-blinked, Tony’s entire being (possibly the deeply buried feline part as well) seem to really start to take notice. They were close enough to feel each other’s body heat and warm moist breath. For a very confused shifter that didn’t even remember his own name, this man was putting a lot of trust in Tony and the trimmers in Tony’s hand. Tony hadn’t even thought this through from a feline perspective - unlike GQ Hobo, Tony was always much more human than cat.
And to a human, this felt like the sort of moment that they lean in to kiss.
The momentary wave of want sent a warm flush down Tony’s neck.
“We should figure out your name.” Tony blurted out, hoping GQ Hobo couldn’t smell that happening. “Even if you don’t remember your own for now, we should pick one that you can use.” — This was how Tony ended up standing outside the shower, rattling off a list of random names on his mobile, while GQ Hobo took a shower in the shower stall. Tony glanced at the fogged over mirror, and hoped that the flush in his neck went down. The situation itself was not helping.
GQ Hobo wanted to call himself James.
And the more time Tony spent with James, the more it sank in for Tony – just how much James seemed to have forgotten how to behave like a human.
First of all, James stepped out of the shower dripping wet, bypassing the towels hanging nicely for him on the rack, stepped right up to where Tony was curled up on the sofa, and began rubbing his wet hair on Tony . Despite Tony’s indignant squawks and attempts to escape the large wet mess, the first evening ended with James’ hair somewhat dried at the expense of Tony’s hoodie and sweatpants. The next few days, James made sure he scented absolutely everything that other people might have touched within Tony's property. Every few steps Tony took introducing James around the property, they had to pause so James could scent-mark as though that was totally a thing that men did.
Sometimes, James’ behaviours gave Tony flashbacks to what must have been memories from times they both spent as fully shifted cats. James was the white cat in those memories, herding Tony around to safe spots on the streets, the scenting and marking and grooming Tony. A lot. Thing was - James was now doing this as a humanoid. Which — made pinning Tony down on various horizontal surfaces and licking Tony on the ear and neck — well. Let’s just say this behaviour had a decidedly different impact on Tony now.
And please, Tony was no prude, but James clearly had suffered some level of amnesia and needed help. (Tony tried to take James out of the Stark property to a hospital, but somehow, with the ease of a cat carrying a kitten by its scruff, James stopped Tony from succeeding. Tony then tried to call a private physician into the property, and James nearly attacked the physician the moment James set eyes on him.) They’d been in an odd cohabitating situation for the past number of days. It was clearly not the appropriate time to pop a boner in response to all the physical gestures of affection.
Tony thought this. And then the first time Tony didn’t manage to keep his pants from tenting at James’ insistent, wet and long licks, James didn’t even pause to accuse Tony of anything. The man simply reached around, and flipped Tony onto all fours on top of the dining table where this was happening. Before Tony knew it, James had gotten into a mounting position right behind Tony’s ass. Tony had no time to think. He bolted with a yelp, leaving all of his dignity as well as one of his woolen socks behind with a confused looking James.
Apparently there was no time for hesitation, negotiation, or shame with the animal mind. The very next day, James stuffed Tony into his favourite warm, comfortable corner of the living room sofa, and announced without a hint of embarrassment or self-doubt, “I want to mount you.”
Tony nearly dropped the mug of coffee that James had first lured him close with at breakfast. He took a cautious sip before placing the mug down and out of the way. “Is that what you really want, here?” Tony tried, with a tone that Pepper saved for Tony whenever Tony was being unreasonable.
James, the animal , apparently having picked up sass in the five days since he woke up humanoid, had the audacity to direct a sardonic ‘ what do you think I’ve been doing for the past week? ’ look at Tony. Tony was simultaneously proud (of the natural affinity to sass) and offended (was that what James had been doing?) It all actually made sense, now that Tony looked back with that particular mindset in place — the protectiveness, the sharing of food and favourite sun spots, and the constant grooming. So much grooming.
In the short time Tony had spent to reflect on this with a bewildered look on his face, James had crowded his way back up close. Tony was pretty self-aware when it came to how to use body language to dominate a crowd, but when it came to James and his still quite animalistic mind, Tony often forgot that James didn’t put much stock in words. James was constantly getting information from Tony’s body language, micro-expressions, and even scent. Tony’s mind had yet to consciously say Yes, James already figured it out.
James kissed like he had experience . Which – considering how animalistic all of James’ other behaviours have been – was surprising. Tony groaned into a demanding, eager mouth, one hand helplessly gripping around soft hair, his other hand making a half-hearted attempt at keeping James from climbing on top. The problem was - James kissed like he groomed - extremely patient, thorough , could be at it all day, and was very good at keeping Tony pinned whether they were humanoid or cat-shaped. By the time James’ mouth was suckling on one of Tony’s nipples beneath an irrevocably wrinkled shirt, Tony whined and gave in.
It was when their bodies were tied together, Bucky clamping human teeth over Tony’s nape as he rolled his hips into his mate, that Bucky remembered his own name. Like a moment of epiphany, something just clicked in Bucky's mind (Perhaps it’d sooth Tony to know that sex with him was just that good – it started fixing Bucky’s amnesia, apparently.) Along with the nickname ‘Bucky’, came an overwhelming amount of jumbled memories that nearly drove Bucky to distraction. Brooklyn streets, kneading on Mom, the docks, Steve, giggly girls, the military, black-ops, a train in winter terrain, falling, crushing pain, terror, pain, pain, pain…
If Tony wasn't anchoring Bucky in the most pleasant way possible, Bucky was sure he would be freaking out at this point. Tony was warm and pliant and tight and smelled like he belonged to Bucky . Tony’s soft black feline ears from partial-shift were trembling against Bucky’s cheek, tail curling over Bucky’s hip, constantly pulling Bucky’s attention back to the present moment. Bucky was sure he was still missing chunks and pieces of his memories at this point, but Tony’s presence alone was enough to keep Bucky from falling apart.
Even without all these signs pointing toward this sweet, resourceful shifter being his soulmate, Bucky knew it in the depth of his soul that this was it. This was the scent that brought him out of years of feral state, the touch that kept Bucky afloat in the utter storm that was in his head. Without having to think about it, Bucky wanted to mark this shifter inside and out, would protect with his everything, and would stay with, never to look back.
Tony’s back braced against Bucky’s chest, crying out as he came. Bucky couldn’t remember witnessing anything more mesmerizing.
“Boss! Files acquired on Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes Jr. are ready for you!” FRIDAY chimed in in a timely manner before James could make Tony forget his name too.
“Files!” Tony dove for the virtual panels with unnecessary enthusiasm in Bucky’s opinion, while Bucky quietly watched from the heap of blankets that they had not left for a good two days straight.
Maybe Bucky’s sweet housecat would figure the rest out. Maybe he would make it easy for his soulmate and offer to go by “Bucky”. One way or another, Bucky had found his housecat, and was returning to the alleyway no more.
~