I was briefly inspired by my own struggling moving unwilling felines.

Thanks to my beta bequirk, as always.

Clint wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead before it could drip into his eye. He was breathing heavily, his muscles screaming at him to stop, to rest. He'd only been out of the hospital for a few weeks after his latest asskicking, courtesy of Loki (again, that douche). He wasn't back to his full stamina.

But he couldn't stop. Not now. Not in the middle of the mission.

He was going to be late.

And he still hadn't gotten his goddamn cat into his goddamn cat carrier.

With a sigh, Clint straightened from his crouch and surveyed his bedroom, stretching out the kinks in his legs. His room, like the rest of the apartment, had recently been transformed into something of a war zone. His bed, usually centered against one wall, was shoved haphazardly into a corner. The covers were strewn in a pile, along with his pillows. His dresser was tipped over, his closet had been torn apart, his clothes littering the floor.

The rest of the house was in equal disarray. The coffee table in the living room had been knocked over and was, in fact, now a three-legged coffee table. A bottle of water had spilled and was slowly soaking into the carpet. The kitchen floor was covered in cat food, the kibbles scattered to all corners of the room.

The bathroom, at least, was relatively untouched, although the towels had been ripped from their hooks and were puddled on the floor behind the door.

The chaos was the direct result of an epic chase sequence that Clint was sure would have been hilarious if it wasn't so annoying.

A week ago, he'd gotten a reminder from his vet's office in the mail telling him that 'Unknown' was due for his vaccines. Like a good, responsible pet owner, he'd called and made an appointment. Then, thinking ahead, he'd gone to the pet store and picked up the nicest, most cushy, high-end cat carrier the store had in stock. It was pale gray, opened at boththe top and the front, and even came with portable food and water dishes that you could mount on the front door.

He thought it looked really nice.

Cat disagreed, though. Vehemently, in fact, which had become evident a mere twenty minutes ago when Clint had tried to put the cat into the carrier, and Cat figured out what was going on.

Cue the chase.

It had led them through a full circuit of the house, twice. At least Clint had been smart enough to lock the cat door on his apartment's front door so Cat couldn't escape; that would have been a disaster. It was kind of a disaster anyway. Cat paid no mind to what he was tearing up or destroying in his quest to avoid the carrier, and Mouse, Clint's aptly-named rodent companion, seemed to be chuckling at the whole thing from his habitat.

Or maybe Clint had just been imagining that part.

Fucking pets.

Clint sighed again, dropping to his hands and knees and peering under his bed. "Oh, come on already, we're going to be late! They already don't like me 'cause you don't have a real name! Being late's just gonna make it worse."

From under the bed, way back in the corner, a low growl was the only reply.

Cautiously, slowly, Clint reached his hand towards the hostile ball of fur he could barely make out in the gloom under the bed.

But he'd had Cat long enough by now that, when the animal lashed a paw out, claws extended, Clint was fast enough to pull back without getting scratched.

"Ha!" he said. "Missed me!"

But that didn't change the fact that the cat was still under the bed instead of in his cat carrier, and it didn't change the fact that Clint's appointment with the vet was in half an hour.

It was a 25-minute drive.

Casting a glance, well, more of a glare, towards the bed, Clint pulled out his cell phone.

Natasha answered on the first ring.

"What I don't understand," Natasha mused, looking at the cat carrier that was currently tipped over on Clint's bed, "Is, why the pet carrier?"

Clint huffed. "It's safer than riding free in the car. Have you seen how people in this city drive?"

Natasha smiled that little half-smile that always made Clint nervous. "Fair enough. Okay, what do you want me to do?"

He waved vaguely towards the bed, a gesture he hoped conveyed his level of desperation and hopelessness. His appointment was in 20 minutes, so he was going to be late. Maybe he could get Tony to fly him and Cat there...

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think I'll be any more successful than you were?"

Clint felt that was fairly obvious; Natasha was generally more successful than him in all walks of life. "Will you please just try?"

"Fine," Natasha replied. In one fluid movement, she was lying on her stomach, looking under the bed. "Where is he?"

"Back corner."

She huffed a laugh. "Only you'd be able to see him back there." Then, in a softer voice, "Here, kitty. Who's a good boy? Who's a good kitty? Do you want a treat?"

Clint heard a tiny 'mew.'

"Go get the treats, Barton," Natasha ordered. She went back to using her soft voice. "Good kitty, what a good boy..."

Clint obediently went and did as he was told, crossing the kitchen carefully to avoid crushing any of the cat food. He grabbed a packet of cat treats from his pantry and headed back to his room.

When he got there, he found Natasha gently lowering Cat into the cat carrier through the top. "Good boy, good cat." She took the treats from Clint and shook a few into the container before closing the top. "There. That wasn't so hard."

Incredulous, Clint looked around at his destroyed bedroom. But he didn't have time to snark. "Thanks Nat, I owe you one."

"You owe me, like, ten, Clint. Not that I'm counting." She dusted her hands off on her pants. "You'd better get going."

It was true; his appointment was in 15 minutes.

He grabbed the cat carrier off the bed and ran to the garage.

He managed to make the 25 minute drive into a 20-minute drive, inspired largely by the fact that once the car started moving, Cat started meowing. And didn't stop, not for one minute, until the car stopped moving.

He'd also thrown up at some point, filling the car with the distinct odor of half-digested cat food.

Once Clint was in the parking lot, he leaped out of the car and grabbed the cat carrier from the backseat, hustling into the vet's office as fast as he could.

"You've never been motion sick before," Clint huffed, wedging himself and the carrier through the glass doors. "Why now?"

Clint, personally, figured it was all some sort of passive aggressive protest about the car carrier, and since Cat didn't explain himself beyond offering a grumpy "meow," Clint figured he was on the right track.

The office was blessedly empty except for a woman with a pair of beagle puppies rolling around on the floor, and Clint made his way to the receptionist's desk.

She looked up at him. "Mr. Barton and...Unknown?"

"Yes," he answered, wincing when he saw that he was almost 10 minutes late.

"You're late," the receptionist noted, glancing down at Cat's file.

"I'm sorry," Clint apologized. "I, uh, couldn't get my cat into his carrier."

At that, the receptionist smiled. "I understand. Just try to be on time next time, okay? We're pretty slow today, but if was a busier day, we'd have to reschedule you." She dug around the desk for a minute before handing Clint a pamphlet. "You might want to give that a look while you wait. We'll be ready for you in just a minute."

"Okay, thanks," Clint said. He couldn't imagine if he'd had to reschedule, having to get Cat into the goddamn carrier again. He took a seat on the other side of the room from the woman and the beagles, setting Cat's carrier beside him and ignoring the periodic hostile meows coming from within.

The pamphlet the receptionist had given him was titled, "Reducing the Stress of Vet Visits for Your Cat."

Clint made a note to read the whole thing.

The actual vet visit was fairly painless.

A vet tech helped him clean up Cat's unfortunate accident in the carrier, the doctor gave Cat his shots with little fuss from the animal, and Cat went back into his cat carrier quiet as could be.

Of course, as soon as they were back on the road, Cat began singing his sad, sad song, meowing constantly and loudly, and seemingly without tiring.

He didn't stop until they were in the garage.

"I get it, I get it," Clint said to Cat as they traversed the garage towards the elevator. "You don't like the cat carrier. Noted. But you're still going to use it because I don't want you to die in a goddamn car accident or something."

"Talking to your cat again, Barton?" Tony asked, rolling out from underneath one of the cars, face smeared with grease. Clint hadn't known he was there.

"Only person around here worth talking to," Clint shot back.

Tony stood, laughing. "I wouldn't call him a person."

"Don't let him hear you say that."

But instead of replying, Tony began circling Clint, looking at the cat carrier. He hummed thoughtfully, then reached out and took the carrier from Clint's hand, peering at it more closely.

"Hey—" Clint objected, echoing Cat's annoyed hiss.

"This is crap," Tony declared, ignoring them both.

"No, it's not. I paid, like, $50 for that," Clint replied, annoyed.

"Fifty bucks wasted. Gimme a few days and I'll knock something together." He handed the carrier back and, without another word, disappeared back under the car he'd been working on.

Clint shook his head and walked to the elevator.

When Tony had said he'd "knock something together," Clint hadn't honestly expected him to.

Tony was a busy guy, with all kinds of projects and science shit going on. How high a priority could a cat carrier be?

But Clint was forgetting that once, when he'd been gone for a few days, Tony and Bruce had designed an elaborate collar/cat door system so that Cat could wander the Tower at will. When it came to Cat, Tony (and probably Bruce, Tony didn't seem to have any trouble roping him into projects, cat-related or otherwise) could be relied upon.

And so, about a week after the vet trip, there was a knock on the door.

Clint, who'd been lounging on his couch and watching The Dog Whisperer with Cat lying across his chest, gently moved the cat to the floor. He ignored the annoyed "mew" and stood, stretching.

When he opened the door, he was a bit surprised to see Tony standing there, as Tony wasn't his most common visitor. He was even more surprised to see that Tony was holding...a cat carrier.

And not just any cat carrier. It had a keypad. And buttons. And lights.

"Hey," Tony said, pushing his way inside and setting the carrier on the kitchen counter. "So check this out."

He launched into an explanation of the carrier's features, which included such things as biometric security, Wi-Fi, and cat pheromone inserts in addition to re-engineered doors, locks, reinforced sides, and air conditioning.

And somehow, it didn't weigh 80 pounds.

"Why does my cat carrier need Wi-Fi?" Clint asked, a bit overwhelmed.

Tony looked as though the question had never occurred to him. "Why...not?"

At that moment, Cat wandered into the kitchen from the living room, aiming for his food bowl. When he looked up and noticed that cat carrier on the counter, though, he froze.

And then bolted.

"What's his issue?" Tony asked, perplexed.

"He doesn't like cat carriers," Clint said sagely.

"But...mine's awesome."

Clint patted Tony on the back, leading him towards the door. "Don't worry about it; damn cat's kind of an asshole sometimes."

Faintly, from what Clint was certain was under his bed, there came an offended meow.

"You know, Barton, pets take after their owners," Tony said from the doorway.

Clint did not feel bad about shutting the door in his face at all.

Then, he picked the (admittedly awesome) cat carrier up off the counter and shoved it into the hall closet, shutting the door firmly. There was no way Cat would come out of his hiding spot if he could still see it.

And maybe, Clint hoped, it would be a case of "out of sight, out of mind," and with time, Cat would forget what a cat carrier even was.

So in a year, when it came time for his next vet appointment, Clint could catch him unawares and avoid wrecking his apartment.

Which really showed that, no matter how much Clint thought he knew about feline behavior...he still had a long way to go.

Thanks for reading, review if you're so inclined.