Cat Got Your Tongue?

Chapter 3

Cheshire dived behind the couch that was furthest from the balcony railing and Tony kicked her clothes across the floor to her. He hid the almost empty bottles and started down the stairs.

"What are you doing in my house again?" Tony asked when he got down the stairs and infront of Phil.

"I'm here on orders. Inform you of a mission. The Avengers Initiative." Phil handed Tony a minnila file and watched as he opened it. "They took the tesseract."

"Who's 'they'?" He asked looking over the readings. When Cheshire finished dressing, she teleported down to the boys. Tony knew she was going to do it, so he didn't react but Phil almost jumped out of his skin. He quickly recovered and answered Tony's question.

"Some man came out of a black hole with a spear. He put a couple agents who were on watch and Dr Selvig under mind control." Cheshire took the file from Tony and looked at the hostages list.

"He's got selvig?" She mumbled looking over the names. Cheshire had known Dr Selvig when she met Thor and Jane. Jane was heart broken when Thor left. She knew he hasn't come back yet or they would have notified her immediately. 

He heart practically skipped a beat when she saw his name. They've got Clint. How could she not have asked sooner? She knew he was on that mission. Why wasn't he the first thing that came to her mind? If she hadnt been so strung up on Selvig, she would have remembered he was to be guarding the tesseract. How could she be so stupid? 

Tony noticed her discomfort and looked over her shoulder. Seeing Clint's name also he looked back at Phil for clarification. Phil nodded and looked down at his hands. Cheshire forcefully shoved the folder into Tony's hands and began walking. She couldnt wait any longer, so she teleported to her room. For the first time since she read his name, Cheshire looked up. 

"Jarvis, call Natasha." She comanded. Her eyes stung with tears as the ring from the speaker sounded. She sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands.

"Привет?(Hello?)" A manly voice with a strong accent sounded once the line picked up.

"Put the woman on the phone." She said rudly. She was in no mood for small talk.

"You listen carefully-" She rolled her eyes at hs arogance.

"Your at 1-14 Silensky Plaza, 3rd floor. We have an F-22 exactly 8 miles out. Put the woman on the phone or I will blow up the block before you can even make the lobby."

Silence followed and Cheshire smirked, she read all of that from the information SHIELD just sent to her watch.

"We need you to come in." She said once she heard Natasha's heavy breathing.

"Are you kidding? I'm working." She said, beyond annoyed.

"This takes precedence." Cheshire said, now also annoyed.

"I'm in the middle of an interrogation and this moro is iving me everything." There was a pause on the other end of the line where the man mumbled something but Natasha ignored him. "Look, you can't pull me out of this right now."

"Natasha- we need you." She paused as a silent sob escaped her lips. "I need you. C-Clint, he's been compromised." Cheshire could barely get the words out of her mouth without tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Let me put you on hold." Natasha said, followed by a serease of crashes and grunts. Natasha picked the phone back up and started talking. A wave of relief washed over Cheshire with the knowledge that Natasha would be here soon. "Where's Barton now?"

"We dont know." The cat answered quietly.

"But he's alive?" She asked without missing a beat.

"We think so, Phil will brief you on everything when you get back." A message came through on Cheshire's watch. 

Natasha needs to get Banner. - Tony.

"But first, we need you to talk to the big guy." Cheshire said and Natasha chuckled.

"You know that Stark trusts me about as far as he can throw me." This made Cheshire smile slightly.

"I'll update you on the Stark situation later, but i need you to get the big guy." Cheshire confirmed.

"Oh."

"You'll be fine, I'll see you on the carrier?" She quickly changed the subject to get Natasha's mind off her responsibilities.

"Yeah, I'll be there." And with that the call ended.

Cheshire stood up and walked to her closet. She took out her combat outfit and a hoodie, along with some sweat pants. She replaced her current outfit with her combat one, and put her change of clothes into a duffle bag. Her combat outfit was a skin tight, navy blue suit, with electric blue accent rims on the amunitions belt, gun holster and knife slot. It also had the accent color in lines down the sides of the arms and legs, and traced the zip up the front. Cheshire let her hair back down but kept the tie on her wrist incase of an emergency. She cocked her blue, Browning Arms handgun and slide it, along with her knife, into their holsters. She clipped extra cartridges onto her belt and hid a few other weapons. She slid her combat boots on and stood up.She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked out to where the boys where. 

Both men looked at her as she walked into the room. Though Cheshire didn't look at Tony once. She kept her gaze glued to the marble floor as she knew that if she met Tony's eye, she would cry. She pressed the elevator button and it dinged open. The cat and Phil stood inside the elevator waiting for the doors to close. Tony looked at his phone as a text message came through and mumbled his a goodbye to Phil before fo using on Cheshire.

"Hey, be careful ok? I'll meet you there soon." She finally met his eye, only to be startled by his sinserity. "I love you." He stated as the doors of the elevator began to close.

"I love you too." She managed to slip in dust before there was no place to slip anything in and the elevator began to descend.