this is why i shouldn’t browse my gdocs:
I just found a document called “UNDERDOG TO THE RESCUE (we’re not really calling it that)” which, god help me, I think was the setup for a fic where the Avengers adopt a puppy that siriaeve and I talked about writing one time.
No, really.
Sooo, since I don’t actually remember what the plot of this was supposed to be or what Siria and I talked about, and the last time I looked at it was MONTHS AGO, let’s call this WIP amnesty or some shit. Please help yourselves to Steve Rogers, A Puppy, and Tony Stark being very Danny Williams about his pizza.
“It’s a dark and stormy night,” Steve says, when Tony answers the phone on the second ring. “I just want you to know that.”
“You called to give me a weather report? That’s sweet,” Tony says. “Y’know what’d be less sweet, though, is if you’d called to complain about being on recon duty, since I told you—seriously, how many times did I tell you, like ten, eleven times, I told you to pass that off. I said ‘Give it to Clint!’ I said ‘Make Natasha do it!’ And you were all ‘The burden of leadership, Tony, is occasionally stepping up to the plate,’ or whatever, so it’s not my fault if it’s a dark and stormy night, that’s all you.”
“Are you done now?” Steve says, smiling a little despite himself. “Because if that’s guilt I hear, I’m not calling for that.”
“You’re not?”
“I wanted to know if you’d eaten,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. He ducks down an alley, shoes squelching, in the hope that the fire escapes might offer a little cover from the downpour. “I’m done with the thing, thinking about dinner; I thought you might want me to bring you something, since I didn’t figure you’d want to go out in the weather. So, you know, stand down.”
“Oh,” Tony says. Then, after a moment’s pause, “So, burgers? No, wait, you’re in Greenwich Village, aren’t you—pizza, then?”
“Sounds good,” Steve says, turning his collar up. It’s strange—he can hear the wind howling down the mouth of the alley, but he can’t quite feel it; maybe he’s just reached some sort of critical saturation point. “Any preference on toppings?”
“Just no weird shit,” Tony says, “Bruce keeps ordering pizza with like, red onion and chicken and pineapple, it’s awful. ”
“He’s trying to eat healthier, there’s nothing wrong with that.” Steve narrows his eyes; the howling is starting to sound a lot less like wind and a lot more like…well, like the cry of something in pain. He slows and looks around, but it’s hard to see anything on a night like this, so he gives up looking and follows the sound.
Tony, naturally, keeps talking. “Yeah, ‘course there’s not, happy to make him a smoothie or, or a salad or something, whatever, but pizza is a sacred thing, especially New York pizza, you can’t just litter it with—are you even listening to me?”
“Yeah, sorry,” Steve says. “There’s just this weird…noise.”
“Any chance you were followed from the recon site?”
“Don’t think so,” Steve says; he’s getting close now, he’s sure of it. “Not that kind of thing anyway, I don’t think—can I call you back?”
“Of course,” Tony says, all business now. “If it’s anything you need backup for—”
“Yeah, will do, bye,” Steve says, and hangs up. There’s something moving in the shadows around the next corner; Steve hugs the wall, just in case, and eases slowly forward. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to find—an injured citizen, maybe, or a shoddily-constructed trap from one of two-bit copycat villains that’ve been cropping up lately.
Whatever he’s expecting, it’s certainly not a mangy looking yellow lab growling down at an impossibly small, soaked-through puppy, a bone on the ground between them. Steve does a cursory glance around—there’s always the chance that this is, in fact, a well-constructed trap, since puppies are kind of the ultimate bait—before he takes another step forward to get a closer look. He watches, flush with a sudden, sharp discomfort he’s not sure how to explain, as the puppy tries for the bone again; the lab knocks him away with one massive paw, and the puppy goes flying, tumbling over himself and into the wall.
Steve’s already stepped forward to intervene—he’s clearly stumbled upon some kind of mismatched territory fight, and he can’t just leave the poor creature to die—when the puppy stands up and launches forward towards the bone again. The lab, growling low and angry, knocks him clear for a second time—no, Steve realizes, tracking the mud on both animals’ paws and the footprints littering the alley, for a fifth time—and the puppy just stands back up.
I can do this all day, Steve thinks, and wishes he hadn’t.
“Hey, get lost,” he says, coming out of the shadows and walking towards the lab. The dog growls at him, but Steve’s been growled at by a lot worse, so it doesn’t exactly faze him. “Go on, get out of here—go!”
The lab glares at him for a minute, but then grabs the bone and slinks away. When Steve turns, the puppy’s huddled up against someone’s back steps, tucked into the hollowed-out area beneath the lowest stair. That hideout had probably been what the fight was over, and Steve smiles a little despite himself as he crouches down and scoops the little guy out. “You’ve got some moxie, bud, I’ll give you that much. You wanna come visit somewhere a little warmer? Have something to eat while we find a better home for you? Does that sound good?”
The puppy, drenched, so small Steve can hold him with one hand, and shuddering with cold to boot, still manages to give him a long, considering look before he scrambles forward and hides himself in the folds of Steve’s coat. Steve laughs and goes home, keeps an eye entertaining the little guy on his way; he’s already betrayed his own resolve and started thinking about names by the time he walks through the door to find Tony in the front hall.
“Right,” Steve says, “so, I have to ask you—”
“Uh, Steve,” says Tony, pointing at the small, floppy eared head that’s just poked out from the inside of Steve’s jacket, “that…does not look like a pizza.”
