Chapter 9 Two cats a flight of stairs and a genius

AN: I LOVE cats, but I don't have one… yet.

I am NOT relationship material so if the physics of the scene at the end of this chapter is wrong, tough noogies!
Constance is based on me.

Brain's point of view

The life of a cat…

4am time for breakfast

"Meow"
"Meow"

Step step step step step step step step

Lethal tuna breath yawn in the human's face.

Lie on human, make biscuits

Stand up, wipe your feet on human

Put head to owner's ear

"MEOW"

HEADBUTT

"MEOW"

HEADBUTT

"MEOW"

HEADBUTT

"MEOW"

HEADBUTT

"MEOW"

HEADBUTT

Repeat and become more insistent each time until they wake up.

If necessary, unleash the murder mittens on painful areas.

Tony's point of view
Pepper was asleep cuddled up to me. I could tell she was exhausted. She hadn't been staying at the tower because she had been helping Shane and Stephanie deal with the arrests of their parents. The biggest concern was that Vince and Linda had legal custody of Vince's other god-daughter, Constance. Constance has a condition called Weaver Syndrome. She has Dyspraxia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia and Attention Deficit disorder. She's 16 years old. She's smart but none of the mainstream schools in Greenwich wanted to take on such a child. Like her cousins before her, Constance was homeschooled. Unfortunately when Vince and Linda got arrested, Constance basically became a ward of the state. Pepper had been working day and night on helping Constance because no one else would or could. Her mother had gone to work in the Middle East, leaving Constance with Vince and Linda at the age of 5. Unfortunately, Linda McMahon is a nasty piece of work. She has been hateful to Constance since she was a little child.
Pepper had managed to get in contact with Prudence.
It wasn't that Prudence didn't care about her daughter, it was more that she couldn't be a single parent, hold down a job and homeschool her only child because none of the schools in the UK would have taken Constance as a pupil. Furthermore, Constance's father, Timothy "TJ" McMahon was a high level criminal who had escaped prison. Constance and Prudence had had to flee in the middle of the night, twice. The first time when Constance was barely 3 years old and the second when she was nearly 5.

Prudence came to Connecticut, sued the state and won, and then left Constance in the care of Steph, Paul and Shawn. Paul's health took a bad turn however and he almost died of heart failure so Constance moved again, this time to stay with Shane and Lilian. They found what they thought was a residential school for her — Arkham Academy. It's actually an asylum. She was sedated against her will, and was operated on. Her appendix, tonsils, gallbladder and adenoids were removed, and they gave her a radical hysterectomy. She almost died of sepsis and if we hadn't got her out of there she would have, she began to isolate herself, neither eating nor drinking and refusing to speak. Finally, her mother came from Riyadh. She had given up her job, remarried and was relocating to Connecticut. She was setting up a charity for people like Constance. She had taken a part time job as an advocate for young people leaving special education and moving into adulthood. Most of these young people aged out of their education programmes with no life skills, or job prospects. Realising that Constance was most likely in the same boat, Prudence set up the charity, hired people to run it and remained as head while also working for an oil company.

Pepper had been helping Prudence and Vince and Linda. She had also been working as CEO of Stark Industries. I glanced at her as she slept. I could see the dark purple circles round her eyes. I felt four paws jump onto my chest. I grabbed my phone and lit it so that I didn't disturb Pepper's sleep and so that I could see which of my cats was jumping up on me. Pinky stepped up towards me and I tucked her into the crook of my arm. The Brain crawled up my other side and lay down around Pepper's head with her tail above me.

I reeled Pepper in, she cracked an eyelid, leaned in and we kissed and then she settled back to sleep. I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep but I was worried about everything that was going on and I had difficulty getting to sleep. Pepper felt me tossing and turning and reeled me in.

3 hours later, I felt paws on my chest and a furry head under my chin… and then two loud voices in my ears.

"MEEEEOW!"
"MEEEEOW!"

"Girls. It's 4:15 am, go back to sleep." I said around a massive yawn.

"MEEEEEOW!"
"MEEEEEOW!"

"Fine"

I pulled the quilt back, picked up both cats, and took them downstairs. I had no idea that Pepper had woken up and was watching me with the cats.

"When I get back from work today I'm building that auto feeder for you two and then you can stay downstairs!"

I took both cats into the kitchen and put them on the floor. I put their food into their bowls and then went back to bed. Pepper was awake.

I climbed into bed beside her and reeled her in, pulling her on top of me.

"I missed you"

"I missed you too"

I flipped so that I was on top of her, she lifted her chin and I kissed the side of her neck making her shudder with desire.

"Tony!" she whimpered. I made my way a little further south, relishing her moans and squeaks. I slid my hand into the drawer, lubed my fingers and slipped them inside her. She slid her hand inside my pyjama trousers and then my boxers, her hand sliding up and down my shaft until I was semi hard.

Pepper sat up and crawled down under the covers and inhaled my length, sucking until I squirted.

"Mmmm Pep! God that was incredible"

"Fuck me, HARD Tony…"

We spend the next hour having sex and the following two hours sleeping.

My alarm went off at 8:15am and I silenced it and rolled back over. Pepper was still fast asleep next to me. I pulled her into my arms.

45 minutes later, I woke up in an absolute panic

"Pepper, I'm going to be late for training! I have to go now!"
"But" I didn't hear the rest of her answer because I was already under the shower soaping my hair and scrubbing my teeth, I rinsed my hair, leapt out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my hair, grabbed underwear, socks, trousers and a shirt and got dressed quickly.

"Tony?" I heard Pepper's voice yell but I was so focused on getting dressed that I completely ignored her…

"Tony!" Pepper yelled again but I was still trying to get out of the door to training, so again I didn't listen.

The Brain's point of view

I was sitting at the top of the stairs like I always did at naptime because Pinky's snoring bothered me.
I was in the middle of bathing myself, getting ready to settle down for my midmorning nap when the male hooman came haring towards me and

CRASH!

We flew through the air and he landed bony arse first right on my tail

"PINKY!" I shrieked, while giving the male hooman the well deserved mauling of a lifetime with claws and teeth.

"What Brain… NARF"

"The hooman just landed on me"

"How did that happen, Brain? NARF!"

"He was running at me and then he put his foot under my belly and we both went flying."

Pepper's point of view

Tony was lying at the bottom of the stairs, The Brain was at his ankle, she was slashing and clawing and biting his ankle.

"Brain that is enough!" I scolded her.

"OWWW!" Tony groaned… I saw his ankle and almost puked. The bone was sticking out through his skin, which meant his ankle was broken . I scruffed the Brain and put her in the living room. I got Tony some soda and a cookie, he was in shock. Then I ran to the office and called Bruce, and Jay. They rushed to the tower. I got some wipes and wiped up the blood. While Bruce and Jay took Tony into the infirmary so that Bruce could examine him, I went to the living room and after giving Pinky and the Brain a Churu tube each I checked The brain over.

She yowled at me when I checked her tail
"Sorry honey but I have to check you over"

I made a decision while Tony was in surgery, I would take The Brain to the vet to be checked over. Tony adores those cats, he raised both of them from the age of 4 weeks old — bottle feeding them every 2 hours until they were old enough to wean. I didn't want to risk anything bad happening to her. I tricked The Brain into going into her carrier by making a trail of kitty cookies between her spot on the couch and her carrier.

"I'm sorry baby but we have to get you checked over."

Bruce's point of view

After fixing Tony's ankle Jay and I put him to bed in his own room. Jay brought Pinky upstairs. Pepper had gone to take The Brain to the vet.

She called

"The Brain is going in to have x-rays but because she's eaten it needs to wait for a while. I'll be going to the office until the vet calls."

Pepper's point of view

The vet called me back 3 hours later

"The x-rays are clear, and The Brain is one unhappy kitty… she woke up and she's rather annoyed that she's with us here"
"I'm on my way to get her now"

Tony's point of view

I was in the pink cloud coin land in Super Mario Bros 3, I had a raccoon tail and was flying high over the level… When I came down from the coin bonus, I slipped off the edge of a platform and went down a hole, effectively ending the round.

When I woke up, Pepper was sitting on the chair by our bed, The Brain was curled up asleep on her lap, Pinky was asleep on my chest. My left ankle was propped up VERY high on pillows.

"Was Fury angry?"
"Why would he be?"
"I missed training"

"Tony, I tried to tell you this morning that the training isn't until next week but you were too busy rushing about to hear me." said Pepper.

Pepper stood up, plopped The Brain beside me on the bed and went downstairs to start dinner.

When she came back she had dinner on a tray for the four of us (chicken and sausage shawarma) and a letter for Clint and Nat.