The Avengers were fighting - honest to god, Clint couldn't make something like this up - a gigantic pussycat. She was a fluffy orange tabby, and would be adorable, were it not for the fact that she was the size of a suburban Pizza Hut. Oh, and she was currently trying to destroy Battery Park (he didn't think that poor jogger was going to bleed out, but luckily, it looked like another passer-by knew first aid.)
The most embarrassing part was that they were losing. Natasha's weapons were doing nothing but annoy the cat, and she kept batting Clint's arrows out of the air as if they were toys. Mjollnir might have been able to knock her out, but the first time Thor threw the great hammer toward her, she leapt into the air and gracefully caught it about forty feet off the ground, and now she was crouching jealously over it like it was fresh prey. After that, Cap wisely decided not to try throwing the shield, but that left him serving as little more than a brightly-colored distraction for Stark's strafing runs.
He had just done another swooping attack, hand-repulsors at maximum against the back of her skull, and she turned her head to follow him, making a deep rumbling sound that shook the whole street.
"I think I made her angry," Stark said optimistically.
"Actually, I think that was a purr," Natasha said, eyebrows raised. "She probably doesn't get her ears scratched very often."
"Well... damn," Stark said, and hovered back in the air. "Anybody got a better idea?"
"You ever notice how dependent we all are on ranged weapons?" Clint asked, as the cat stretched up just enough to swat down another of his arrows, without dropping her guard on Mjollnir.
"I could try punching her, but somehow I don't think it would do much good," Captain America answered, catching his breath.
"Yeah, no," Stark answered. "Maybe if she was one of those white cats with the little black mustache--" he gestured with one golden finger a few inches above the helmet's mouth-slit, which didn't do much good. Cap looked confused. Clint rolled his eyes. "No? That doesn't get a laugh? Are we quip-free now? Fine, remind me to show you the website later, Steve. And hold out on the punching giant supernatural monsters. That's what the Hulk is for. If Fury ever clears him."
Thor was staring at the cat, arms crossed, more or less the same way he'd been since he lost Mjollnir. "Friend of the bright whiskers, why do you offer us harm? We would have thee rather as an honored ally, though let it be stated that thou shalt not be permitted thy oppressions upon this island; Manhattan is not Man."
"Uh, Thor," Tony said, "I don't think negotiating with this thing is going to work. It's a giant pussycat, not a business rival."
"But I know of this fell beast, Man of Iron!" Thor exclaimed. "My father was acquainted with her of old. It is she-who-scratches, the clawed one, who climbed from the sea, the Cat Palug."
The Cat Palug made another deep sound, and this one definitely wasn't a purr. Thor frowned at her. "We must call upon the son of Coul."
"Your faith in SHIELD is heartening, Odinson," Natasha said, "But there's nothing Agent Coulson could do here that I can't." She looked at the cat again. "Well, not me and Clint together, anyway."
"But he is the son of Coll son of Collfrewy!" Thor said. "Of the line of one of the Three Great Herdsmen of Britain! The heir of the enchantments of Rhuddlum Gawr, exile of Muspellheim!"
The rest of them were silent in response to this, until Stark decided to have mercy on the rest of them. "I think you may have been a little bit misled there, Son of Odin," he said carefully. "You see, in this part of Midgard, even though some of us use names that sound like patronymics, we don't literally mean that the person is the son of the person who is in the name."
Thor frowned. His forehead crinkled up, which meant he was attempting to think. "But is not Natalia Ivanovna the daughter of Ivan?"
"Yeah, but she's Russian, she doesn't count," Stark said.
"Hey!" shouted Natasha, and then dashed under the cat's nose, just fast enough to avoid a flashing paw.
Stark ignored her protest in favor of ruffling the fur on the cat's neck again (from a safe distance.) "Anyway, Coulson's not Russian, he's -- actually, does anybody know where Coulson came from?"
"He's a secret agent, Tony," Cap said. "They usually don't spread their background details around--"
The thing was, though, Clint probably knew more about Coulson than any of the rest of them, and he didn't know anything about the man's history, either. And the things Thor said had an uncomfortable habit of coming true, the more ridiculous the more likely, it sometimes seemed like. And since Stark and Thor had both had their calling-SHIELD-leadership privileges revoked with justification, and Cap still hadn't quite figured out the headsets, that left him and Natasha as the responsible ones, scary as that thought was. And Natasha seemed to be busy trying to bait the cat into moving away from Mjollnir, so, well, it couldn't hurt to call in.
"Barton," Coulson barked. "Taken the creature down yet?"
"No," he answered. "Thor seems to think he knows what it is, though. Does the name Cat Palug mean anything to you?"
There was a fairly informative moment of stillness on the other end, and then Coulson said, "I don't suppose that our expensive and temperamental troubleshooting team is going to be able to defeat a lonely kittycat?"
"Well, we're keeping her occupied, at least," Clint said, and cocked his head to shoot off another arrow just as the Cat Palug almost came too close to Natasha. "Although at some point she'll probably get bored of us and wander off toward the financial district or something, and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to stop her. Thor seemed to think the Son of Coll might be able to do something?" he ended that on a deliberately irritating rising inflection.
Coulson growled, then said, "I'll be there in under five minutes," and shut down the connection. Clint blinked.
"Uh, guys?" he said. The other four seemed to be carrying on a continuing argument about patronymics while they harassed the cat. "Coulson's on his way."
"What?" Natasha said.
"You're kidding," said Stark.
"Huh," said Cap.
"I knew the Son of Coll would stand by his comrades in time of trial!" Thor beamed.
"Uh, yeah," Clint agreed.
"This is ridiculous," Coulson said, walking toward them from a black sedan.
"I agree," Clint and Stark said almost together, and then glared at each other.
"And as for you," Coulson said, pointing at the cat, "you are in so. much. trouble."
She dipped her head at him and made a half-defiant whining sound.
"You know you aren't supposed to be here. Now let the nice Asgardian pick up his hammer, you don't want to make his father angry."
She hunched back over Mjollnir defensively.
"Fine," Coulson said, throwing his hands up in the air. "Fine! Okay, fish. There will be fish. Lots of fish."
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but backed up just enough that Thor could dash in and retrieve his hammer.
"Good kitty," Coulson said. "Now go lay down over there and behave while I figure out what we're going to do about you."
She didn't move. Coulson rolled his eyes. "I will scratch you under your chin," he said with an air of long-suffering, and she rose gracefully and stalked over to the lee of the building, where she could curl up and be mostly out of the way.
"I hate cats," Coulson muttered, staring after her, and then glanced at the rest of his team and said, "Slack-jawed isn't a good look on any of you. I used to pet-sit sometimes when I was a kid, okay? I guess she remembers me."
"So, wait," Clint said. "That really was the Cat Palug?"
"She's supposed to be safely exiled to the Otherworld," Coulson said.
"Whence she was banished a millennium and more ago, when my father was yet young," Thor added helpfully.
"I don't imagine he knows how she came again to Middle-Earth?" Coulson asked.
"I will be sure to inquire when next I see him," Thor replied.
"You're actually the son of Coll son of," Stark paused, probably getting something fed to him by the computer in his suit, "Collfrewy, the keeper of the pigs of Dallwyr Dallben?" He shook his head. "Wait, isn't that a children's book?"
"Keeper of the pigs? Seriously?" Clint asked, before he had time to veto his mouth.
Coulson pressed his lips into a thin line. "Swineherd is an honorable profession. A step up from herding superheroes, at least. The pigs were moderately less likely to gorge themselves on swill and fermented fruit and then pass out in their own filth."
"Okay, that's fair," Stark said, "Did I apologize for that yet? Because I meant to apologize. Cap here told me he couldn't get drunk, but--"
"Hey!" said Captain America. "That wasn't my fault!"
Coulson rolled his eyes. "Stark, you stay here and keep an eye on the cat. She seems to like you, for reasons beyond human ken. Notify me immediately if she tries to move. The rest of you, back to base, I have to arrange for a shipment of a quarter-ton of fresh cod."
~Bonus Epilogue~
Clint made sure he was in the room when Stark showed Cap the catsthatlooklikehitler.com website. Cap clicked around for a bit, and then said, "This is a very strange century."
"But you get why it was funny, right?" Stark said. "You would have laughed, if you'd, you know, had the context."
"I never actually punched him, Tony," Cap said with a sigh.
"My great-aunt has one of them," Clint offered. "Nasty little vermin. You could punch him, if you wanted."
"Nobody is punching anything," Coulson said from behind him, and Clint nearly jumped out of his skin. Nobody should be able to sneak up on him, dammit, mythical pig-herder or not. "Why aren't the three of you in the briefing that was supposed to start five minutes ago?"