A few months previously

"Hi, how can I he – what the hell is that?!"

Sam responded by grinning as the little red drone orbited around the ceiling of the coffee shop with a soft whirring noise, swooping between the low-hanging lamps. "Usual list if you please, Miss Kresk."

Eva folded her arms and followed the path of Redwing with her eyes, finally seeing the much-hyped invention in the flesh. Titanium. Whatever. "Stark finished it, then."

"He's not an it," Sam retorted, "he's a he. He's called Redwing, and if I can put up with Rachel Carson, then –"

"I'm sorry sir, we don't allow pets in here."

"Aw, c'mon. Look at him, Eva. He's cute. Admit it. You know you wanna."

Eva suppressed a sigh and looked at the drone, which was now hovering over Sam's shoulder. She felt like it was watching her, and as soon as that thought occurred to her it bleeped. Okay. Maybe it was slightly cute. But she would never admit that, and certainly not while it was flying around and almost knocking over all the fake-rustic interior design.

"You're not getting caffeine until it leaves," she told Sam, who frowned and held out his hand. Redwing folded into a little metal lump about the size of an old-fashioned brick phone, and Sam stuck it back in his pocket. "Thank you."

"You did think he was cute, though," he said as she turned to the coffee machine, "right?"

"I've seen cuter."

"Like what?"

"Its owner."

"Smooth, Kresk. That was real smooth," Sam laughed, "remind me you said that next time we got a night off work."

"I'll make a note," Eva said with a cocky grin. "But my cat's still better than your robot bird."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"Redwing can take out targets from a distance of four hundred feet."

"Yeah, well," Eva said defensively, "last week, Rachel Carson killed a bird and brought it back to show me."

"That's disgusting," Sam commented.

"You're just prejudiced against your natural predator, Falcon," Eva retorted.

"Are you saying I'm scared of your cat? Because I am not scared of your cat, Kresk. I just don't like it."

"Yeah, 'cause you're scared of it. Everyone else likes the cat. Vision likes the cat. Alvie likes the cat. All the other Avengers liked the cat when I brought her to the HQ over Christmas. You know why? Because they're not bird people, Sam. They're not scared of my cat."

"The cat don't like me!"

"That is also true," Eva nodded. "Imagine if your favorite food group suddenly got, like, two hundred times bigger and had access to high-tech weaponry, not to mention the person who looks after you."

"You know," said Sam, "I'm not actually a bird."

"I've seen you drunk, Sam. You yelled "caw caw, motherlover" and rugby tackled Rogers. Except you said the more explicit version of motherlover which I can't say because I'm at work. Not-bird-people don't do that."

"Touché," Sam said, and grinned in recollection. "That was a good night. Still got the bruises."

Eva slid the coffee cups over to him, and took the bills he exchanged for them. "Go, Bird Man. Go be a hero."

A/N since it's summer, how do y'all feel about me giving you some book recommendations?

If you like my style of humour and a plethora of weird characters, try Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - it's basically Narnia for grown ups. If my feeble attempts at demonstrating how wonderful humans can be sometimes in the face of cruelty were enjoyed by you, try Wonder by RJ Palacio, and if you like that then check out Ways To Live Forever by Sally Nicholls. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones is also a lovely book to read over the summer, and if you've seen the film then please, please read the book. It's super-different. If you dig the behemoth, world-building, character-filled style of the Avengers films, and also dry conversational humour like I try to do with this fic, try the Skulduggery Pleasant series. And if you're looking for superheroes try volume one of Gail Simone's run on Batgirl, The Darkest Reflection, which is what got me into comics.

Whew. I tried to make those relevant and interesting to those of you who like this. If it proves popular, I might do recs again some time. If y'all hated this A/N, then we'll pretend it just never happened. And if there's anything you want me to read, just drop a review/PM :)