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See, Tony hadn’t wanted animals. And, well, okay, Tony’s house, Tony’s rules. And they didn’t need animals anyway because all of them already had sleeping hours and eating habits and loud noises into the night enough for a whole jungle.
So- no pets. Until one day when Clint and Steve return from the subway with a golden retriever.
“No,” is Tony’s final decision on the matter.
An hour later, the council (comprising of all of them and the dog) meet in the living room.
“Your case, Rogers,” Tony snaps, displeased as all hell, entirely hating the dog’s little-boy-lost face, Steve’s puppy eyes, and himself.
“If I may,” Clint interrupts.
“You may not,” Tony decides.
“Go ahead, Barton,” Thor says benignly.
“Well, we were waiting on the subway, when we see this little fellow wandering around. He looks so lost, and alone, and he could be run over so easily and we were wondering why is he here? we should at least bring him away from the dangerous speeding vehicle threatening to crush him, and next thing we know, he’s run onto the tracks, just as the subway comes hurtling around the corner, and luckily Cap’s here, with his super soldier reflexes, and he manages to save him in the nick of time. Poor doggy’s suicidal, very likely suicidal, we’d better-“
“Rogers?” Tony asks.
Steve darts a look at Clint, then at the dog, then at Tony. “We went to the pet store.”
“Nice try, Barton, sit back down,” Natasha says.
“Seriously?” Clint asks Steve.
“I’m sorry,” Steve says.
“They brought the canine here under false pretences,” says Tony, stern. “This deserves-“
“Well, only one of them did,” Bruce says fairly.
The Council are split into two: Tony says no, and Bruce says yes, and Thor says yes, magnificent golden creature, and Natasha says no because she’ll be the one looking after it in the end. They argue late into the night and are interrupted when Hammer decides to unleash a flock of scary flying eagle- octopi into the night sky. It takes a lot out of them, and Tony has to go for a further debriefing because he destroyed a lot more property than was in their budget for the month of June, and Fury snaps at him Why’d you have to go and lead those monsters into those buildings and Tony says it killed them didn’t it and Fury says we’re over budget by a million dollars for god’s sake Stark not all of us are made of money.
When Tony storms out of the office, he finds Steve in the corridor outside, fast asleep. The dog is curled up next to him, and looks up at Tony with mistrustful eyes. Tony says, “Hey, boy- no, girl?” He reaches out for the dog’s head and pets it tiredly, and then he shakes Steve gently awake.
“I fell asleep,” Steve says, groggy.
“I got that, Cap,” Tony says, looking at Steve rub his fists into the corner of his eyes and feeling the anger melt away, easy.
When the Council meet the next morning, Tony says, “Fine.”
Moira- Tony doesn’t know where Steve gets the name from, knows that when Steve wants to tell him, he will- is pretty much the perfect pet, if such things existed. She maintains a respectful distance with Tony, gambols with Thor and Clint, is always there for Bruce to stroke, adores Natasha, who is as fond, in her cold life-threatening way, as is possible of the dog, and loves Steve.
Seriously. Tony’s never seen any animal who’s as enamoured with a person as Moira is with Steve. She follows Steve around like his feet are magnets, and she’s the most reactive kind of alloy. She’s there when he eats, trains, sleeps. She’s only not allowed to go on missions with them, and according to JARVIS, she wails pitifully when they’re out on those. It gives JARVIS quite a headache.
“You don’t have the necessary nervous system needed for a headache, JARVIS,” Tony informs him.
“Be that as it may, that dog’s never-ending howling when the Captain is gone gives me one, sir,” JARVIS states.
Tony’s almost jealous of her, as ridiculous as it is, envying a dog her devotion. But- no, that’s not quite right. He’s incredibly jealous of her. He wants to stare at Steve train, to be there when Steve sleeps, and he wants to be able to love Steve as openly-
No. No. These are the thoughts Tony entertains only when it’s late at night and he can’t sleep.
All the same, he’s a lot less nicer to Moira than he ought to be. The rest think it’s the whole forced to adopt a pet thing, and Tony tries to believe them.
Until.
One day Tony’s alone on the roof of Stark Industries when Loki drops three or four giant killer machines that look like scorpions on him. Loki probably meant it as a joke, if any of the other Avengers were here they’d both make easy work of it, but they’re not, none of them in the house right then, and Tony doesn’t have his Iron Man armour, and the scorpions are on him before he can rush inside and yell for JARVIS. They knock him unconscious, sting him with poison but before he passes out he catches, at the edges of his vision, Thor, descending upon him from above, carrying the good Captain with him.
He also feels soft lips on his temple as he drifts in and out of consciousness, but that is probably the hallucinations brought on by poison.
He awakens, and Steve’s there, and so is Moira.
“She was in the house,” Steve explains. “She barked until JARVIS informed us that you were handling a situation. JARVIS says it was so different from her usually pitiful whining that he knew something was wrong.”
“That’s- c’mere, girl,” Tony says. He drags his drug-heavy hand through her fur. He is a stupid, stupid man, and he loves this dog.
“You saved my life, Moira,” Tony tells her at two in the morning. Moira looks up at him with intelligent eyes. She’s down in the workshop again- Steve’s sleeping, he’d had a public appearance at some glitzy Old People’s Ball that went on for ages and he’d stumbled through the front door at eleven and gone straight to bed. Tony’d taken off his shoes and tucked him in and stroked his cheek, and it didn’t count because only Moira knew. And then Moira’d followed him down here, keeping Tony company.
Tony won’t go to bed, even though there’s nothing he’s currently working on right now that’s significantly pressing; he’s on the tail end of a few projects and is pretty proud of most of them. It’s just that his bed is so goddamn lonely sometimes from the lack of Steve’s warm presence that it aches, a goddamn hole inside of Tony’s chest.
Moira makes a soft mournful sound, like she can tell what Tony’s thinking. She probably can. Tony sighs and strokes her golden fur.
“You deserve a reward, y’know,” Tony tells her. “You’re a good dog. I’m sorry about before.”
Moira settles her front paws on Tony’s knees. She looks up at Tony, but Tony can’t tell if it’s It’s okay or I don’t forgive you, you bastard, but I’m here because I feel excruciatingly sorry for you and the sad lonely life you lead.
“Oh!” says Tony. “Yes, brilliant, let me just see-“
He gently moves her paws off him and rushes off to some complicated-looking machine, leaving Moira to look after him with more than a bit of worry.
Therein follows days of sleeplessness and undereating and only coming out for missions and Steve ordering, “Tony, Tony, I will bodily lift you out of here, you’re not a robot, you can’t function like this, Tony I swear-“
and weeks and weeks of undecipherable diagrams and Moira constantly being hooked up to a machine when Steve’s not there and prototype after prototype until
but Tony’s a fucking genius, remember?
x
This is how Steve knows he’s going insane: his dog is talking to him.
“SteveSteveSteve,” she says, in a gruff excited timbre, but polite as you please. “Would you like some coffee SteveSteveSteve?”
Steve, who doesn’t forget his manners, says automatically, “Yes, please, Moira-“ and holds out his coffee cup to the dog- no, something’s wrong.
“Tony!” he yells.
Tony doesn’t answer and Steve says, all manners, still, “Moira, d’you mind if I just, I’m just going to, find him-“ and he rushes out with the coffee cup, Moira at his heels.
Tony’s sleeping on the floor of his workroom even though Steve’s certain that he’d ensured Tony go to bed at an appropriate hour last night. His eyes are closed and his mouth’s open and he’s clutching a tool that Steve would call a screwdriver if it didn’t have a pair of swirly aerials protruding from its sides, and his hair is a mess and he looks relaxed and he’s asleep like he hasn’t been for days. Steve lifts him gently – Tony doesn’t stir- and brings him to his own room, where he smooths his hair, presses an open-mouthed kiss to his cheek.
Tony murmurs. Steve draws back. But Tony clutches at Steve’s hand when it starts to leave Tony’s forehead, brings it to rest at his arc reactor. At his heart. He makes a contented sigh.
Steve can’t pull his hand free just yet, wouldn’t even if he could. He settles in beside Tony. He thinks.
x
“Good morning,” Steve says from beside him. Sunlight is filtering in through the slant between the curtains, and Tony’s in bed.
Steve is beside him, and Tony’s in bed.
Steve’s in Tony’s bed.
“Morning,” Tony scratches out, not being able to manage quite more than that just then.
“You made my dog talk,” Steve says.
“Oh- yes.” Tony turns, so he’s facing Steve, who’s already looking at him, less than inches away. It makes Tony’s heart stutter. He hopes his arc reactor isn’t failing. “Um. Are you mad? Because I could just take it off, except I think she kind of loves it, I wasn’t really thinking after I came up with the idea, except that I could do it, it could be done, and I did, and I put it on last night and it was supposed to be a surprise but sometimes people don’t like these kind of surprises I should’ve thought, like the time I built Pep-“
“You made my dog talk,” Steve says.
“I did,” Tony says. “I’d explain it to you, but I’ll need to show you the schematics and they’re in my workroom and well it’s something to do with her brain waves and I just needed to modify my electroencephalogram a bit to read hers, and then I designed a collar that’d transmit her- well, it doesn’t matter now, I can destroy it all if you want, don’t be mad, it was your present, are you mad oh god you are-“
“You are brilliant,” Steve tells him.
And yes, Tony knows that. Has been told that by professors, friends, adoring girls, people on the street he’s never seen before in his life and never will again, himself, but when Steve says it it’s.
It’s like a fucking benediction, for god’s sake.
“Huh,” he says, for lack of a better response, and Steve smiles. Then he leans in, eyes dark, and oh if making a dog speak is all Tony’s needed for Steve to kiss him then the whole fucking animal world could have been conversing fluently in English by now. The kiss is chaste, mostly because Tony’s head is whirling and he’s afraid if he moves, he’ll scare this precious, beautiful creature away. But Steve’s lips are soft and his tongue licks into Tony’s mouth tentatively and Tony starts kissing back, hard.
Then someone clears her throat beside them and they turn, and Moira is looking the other way and making herself as small as is caninely possible.
“Moira,” Steve says, mortified.
“I’ll be going,” Moira says. “Could you just- it’s the door.”
Steve gets up to open it. Moira rubs her head against his leg and trots out. Tony makes a half-choked noise of amusement at the expression on Steve’s face. He is filled with infinite affection for the world, Steve, and the dog, especially. The dog’s beautiful. The dog deserves all the medals.
“Come here,” Tony says, and Steve does.
x