#also another shout out to uhhhhh me moving . and having to pack things .

[justablah56]

aheem heem I have . another drawing guys .

(shout out to @icy-book who gave me the pose reference)

[arukou-arukou]

@katofrafters suggested: “Yo, I always endorse body swaps. Avengers clumsily attempting to fight some ridiculous evil while wearing each other’s bodies sounds spectacular, honestly.” and @musicalluna suggested: “body swap, Steve experiencing the arc reactor.” There’s a little more of the second prompt than the first, but here you go!

Rated T

Hints of pre-relationship Steve/Tony, but the focus is more on Steve experiencing Tony’s body.

Warnings: Some non-sexual nudity. Language.

---

Steve loves Thor, but some days, he thinks the trouble that comes with Asgardians isn’t quite worth the friendship. Not most days. But days like today, days when the Enchantress is rampaging through lower Manhattan flipping green sparks at anyone who catches her eye to disastrous consequences, these days he thinks he’d let Thor go if it meant he didn’t have to explain to the authorities that those dinosaurs are civilians and they are not to be shot. It would be one thing if she were only turning people into animals, but today it seems like Enchantress took a shot of extra spite with her morning coffee, because on the next block, she’s switched to mermaids. There are crowds of civilians flopping feebly on the ground, staring in disbelief at their fishy lower halves or begging for water. Some of the octo-people are more mobile and trying to help, but it’s not nearly enough. The block after that is what appears to be a rain of goo. And then after that is a plague of boils.

And worse, none of the Avengers seem able to catch up with her. She is at a fixed distance from them, always receding. Even when Tony deploys at Mach I, which he tries to avoid in the city, he doesn’t get any closer. Instead, they’re left with a rain of shattered glass and another massive bill in property damage that Steve is sure he’s going to love explaining to the mayor, the feds, and Fury. He’s really starting to lose his patience.

“Thor, could you maybe, I don’t know, think of something?” There’s not much of Manhattan left before Enchantress reaches open water and the idea of her getting away… Steve grits his teeth and pumps his legs harder, fruitlessly.

“Amora! Please, these people have done you no wrong! Your quarrel is with me! If you must punish someone, am I not the one who should bear the brunt of your wrath.”

Fuck, Steve thinks, even as Hawkeye says it aloud. Amora laughs, hair tossing in the wind. “Well, since you put it that way.” She flips her fingers at them and green light encircles, engulfs, consumes.

(THERE IS A READ MORE)

Steve blinks desperately to clear the spots only to realize he can’t clear away these lights. There are so many. Everywhere. All at once. And shouting in his ear. He’s so discombobulated and a bolt of fear jolts through him for the other members of his team. “Widow? Hawkeye? Does anybody copy?”

“Copy, Tony,” says Thor. Then, “What the fuck?” The swear jar is going to be getting a lot fuller soon, because echoes of filthy disbelief sound down the lines of the coms. Steve himself realizes his voice is off. And as he comes to his senses, he also realizes the lights blinking in front of him are the HUD from the Iron Man suit. And dead ahead is a building, closing fast. He has no idea how to steer himself, but if he doesn’t do something… He throws his hands forward and tries to swivel his hips into it, too, and that does stop him, but it also sends him twirling end over end backwards. The horizon line on the HUD spins wildly and spots dance in front of his eyes.

“Tony!” Too late. He crashes into pavement, the shock reverberating up and down his spin and ribs. Holy shit. Ears ringing, head spinning, body aching, Steve stops struggling and waits for it all to end. He has a sneaking suspicion about what’s happened, though he doesn’t want to believe it. He wants to wake up back in his bed at five in the morning and have this all have been a horrible dream.

But then there it is. His own face hovering over him. “Cap, I presume?”

“Uhhhhh.”

“Yeah. Thought so.”

There’s Thor, but his normally jovial face is pinched and hard, while Nat is looking bewildered and frustrated. Hulk is…standing with a cocked hip, idly tossing a stone the size of a human head, while Clint looks furious, teeth gritted and arms bulging as he flexes them.

“Amora’s gone,” Not-Steve says. “Apparently this was the icing on her little tantrum cake.”

“T…Tony?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Fuck me,” Steve groans, dropping his head back.

“Language,” they all say automatically, and he groans again. Yes. He would really like to wake up right about now.

After a tumble like this, Tony normally gets right up again, but Steve’s having a hard time figuring out how he gets himself up. His back is throbbing and the ringing in his head seems like it’ll be sticking around for a while. On top of all that, he’s still not sure how to operate the suit. He can feel what seem like little pads or buttons against his fingers and toes, and that’s a weird feeling, too, that neoprene jumpsuit Tony wears when he has time to suit up for a call. Steve feels practically naked, even though he’s in a 400-pound suit of armor. Tony takes care of it, though.

“Captain Handsome 11-22-33-44-55,” he says, and the HUD flashes blue and clears of everything but vitals and sight lines. JARVIS intones “Captain America override initiated. Awaiting further instructions, Captain.”

“Fly Iron Steve back to the tower and disassemble him in the workshop on the apparatus table. Wait ‘til I get there before you initiate disassembly.”

“Understood, Captain.” And without Steve lifting a finger, the suit begins moving around him. It’s disconcerting and painful, having his limbs shifted in ways he didn’t intend. He tries to fight it at first, but that only makes his back ache all the more. Or rather, Tony’s back. Even though everything in his being wants to fight it, Steve forces himself to relax and go limp, letting the suit move him as it will. It stands, fires up the repulsors, and charts itself a course to the Tower, all without Steve’s input. It’s terrifying. Does Tony ever do this? Let JARVIS take the wheel? How does he stand it?

In a matter of minutes, he’s through one of Tony’s workshop entrances, laid out on a table, waiting to be “disassembled.” He shudders at the thought. He’s still on coms, though, so he can hear the team as they figure out how to maneuver the jet back. Hawkeye would normally pilot, but hulks hands are too big to easily handle the controls and they can’t quite figure out how to shrink him back into being Bruce’s size. He’s not uncontrollably raging, after all, so what might the trigger be? Bruce has calmed back into himself, but he’s deep breathing, trying to keep himself from panicking and “hulking” out in Hawkeye’s body. That could result in serious damage for Clint, especially if Hulk punches anything he’d normally punch as his big green self. That mean’s Nat’s piloting, but she’s having trouble with Thor’s bulk, too, and apparently it’s slow going. Tony is uncharacteristically silent.

It’s another fifteen minutes before Tony makes it to the workshop, tripping over his own feet the last few steps. Steve remembers what that was like. Tony’s not as small as Steve was pre-serum, but he’s still smaller, and Steve’s feet are…big. All of him is big and awkward, and it takes a while to get the hang of all that extra mass taking up space. But Tony’s genius brain is still the same as ever and upon his arrival, JARVIS complies with the second half of his orders, freeing Steve from the suit.

“Don’t get up just yet,” Tony says, walking past Steve to the fridge in the kitchenette in the corner. He comes back with ice packs, ace bandages, and a first-aid kit. “What hurts the worst?”

“Uh, back.”

“Okay. Do you think you can sit up?”

“Think so.”

Tony nods and Steve crunches his abs, trying to rise out of the shell of the suit. Holy hell, that is painful. Three inches up, Steve collapses back down. Ow. Ow ow ow.

“Right. J, help him up?” The suit, still open, sits itself up, pushing Steve with it, and then collapses back down. It happens so quickly Steve’s head starts spinning again.

“Might have a concussion,” he mutters, hand going to his forehead.

“Symptoms?”

“Head hurts. Spinning.”

“Well, what else is new.” It’s not a question. Tony says it like a fact, not like the jibe Steve might have read it as when they first met. “Anything else?”

“Back. Especially the ribs.”

“Ribs appear to be fractured, Captain,” JARVIS adds, his voice now overhead rather than coming from the suit. “Significant contusions on the left shoulder. I believe that is where Sir came down first.”

“Not Sir, J.”

There is a pause uncharacteristic of JARVIS’ usual whipfast retorts. “I’m sorry, Captain, could you repeat—“

“Amora switched us. Tony body, Steve brain, Steve body, Tony brain. The other Avengers, too. Were you not paying attention on coms?”

“I was not activated in the jet.” Which made sense. Clint usually flipped JARVIS on for co-pilot, but Nat was more weary, even after all these months living with the AI. “I have made note of the change, Sir. Apologies, Captain.”

“No problem, JARVIS. You had no way of knowing.”

Tony is staring down at a tablet, and when Steve catches a glimpse, he sees several readouts of Tony’s body. JARVIS has highlighted the ribs and shoulders in question, as well as the head region. “Chest hurts, too,” Steve says, nodding at the tablet.

“Huh?” Tony glances up. “Oh. That’s probably not from the fall. Sorry. You’ll just have to…” He fiddles his fingers vaguely and then turns to the kit, extracting a bottle of pills. “One advantage? If you can call it that. Painkillers are going to work for you. Congratulations. Eat up.” He rattles the bottle at Steve until he takes it, staring down at the little white caplets through the orange plastic.

Steve is about to take three white pills when he feels hands on him. He hadn’t even noticed Tony circling around. Is he always that quiet? He, Steve, not Tony. Tony is usually not quite at all. But now… There an air of apprehension around them, and Steve is trying to figure out exactly why Tony is holding back. But first—

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Getting you out of the flight suit. It’s insulated. The ice isn’t going to help much if you’ve got it on. And the zippers and hooks are tricky if you’re not used to it.”

Steve nods stiffly. He hadn’t exactly imagined this would be how Tony would first disrobe him, but what can you do? There’s the long growl of a zipper coming undone, and then tension and release, presumably where the hooks are. The painted on suit loosens around the shoulders, though it still hugs tightly to the arms, helped by a layer of sweat build-up. Steve starts to peel it down, but Tony stops him again, this time with a sharp, “No!”

A raised eyebrow on Steve’s part has Tony grimacing while he circles back to the front. “Trust me. There’s a trick to this to. And you don’t want to get it wrong.” Tony, with Steve’s own fingers, rings the arc reactor, twisting and lifting until there’s a little pop. A metal ring around the reactor twists forward and away and the whole suit roles down to Steve’s waist, the sleeves still clinging stubbornly to his wrists. He slowly frees his hands, but his attention is now down on his chest. On Tony’s chest.

Somehow, he’s never seen this before. Not in photographs and not in person. It’s one thing to know in the abstract that the arc reactor is buried in Tony’s sternum, but it’s another thing entirely to see it without the barrier of a shirt or three in the way. There are keloid scars all over Tony’s torso, but the mass of scar tissue around the reactor puts them to shame. It’s built up in thick knots, spreading out like a sunburst. Steve takes a breath and realizes this is why his chest hurts. As his chest expands and contracts, the skin around the reactor pulls, going white with the inhale and red with the exhale. And if Steve concentrates, he can feel the slightest of grating of bone against reactor housing.

He wants to touch it, almost does, but one glance at Tony in Steve’s face stops in him his tracks. That’s fear. That’s very nearly panic. And with Steve’s super strength, any sudden move on Tony’s part could have severe repercussions. Steve drops his hand.

“It’s…it’s always like this?”

“What do you think, genius?” Tony snaps. He’s trying to make Steve forget, trying to draw him into a fight, but he’s not going to forget this. Not for a long time. It’s been three years since he last felt the pain caused by his scoliosis or the gnawing panic that comes from not being able to breathe, but he hasn’t forgotten for a second what it’s like. And he won’t forget this either. He stares up into Tony’s face, his own face, which is turned away and red with shame. Steve’s Irish skin isn’t as forgiving as Tony’s Mediterranean complexion when it comes to embarrassment.

Finally, Steve says, “I probably ought to shower before we get those ice packs on.”

Tony glances from the corner of his eye down at Steve. He recognizes an olive branch when he hears it. “Trying to get a free show, Rogers?” His tone is still guarded, but there’s a flash of gratitude as well.

“I mean, I’m not opposed to the idea.”

That makes Tony’s eyebrows pop, his eyes widening as he turns to look down at Steve head on. “Good to know,” he eventually chokes out. “Uh, you can use the shop shower. You…you know where it is.”

Very suddenly, Tony is across the shop, footage of their fight with Amora up on the screen. He’s studying it very intently, but Steve welcomes this kind of tension over the fear that had fogged the air just minutes before. With care, he kicks out of the suit, groaning with the pain of his back. He can feel those bruises purpling up already. The moment he stands, the suit shimmies all the way down his hips, which is how he discovers that Tony sometimes does not wear underwear in his undersuit. Free show indeed. Steve wriggles his toes free of the individual toe holes and steps free of the neoprene, shuffling to the shop bathroom like an invalid. Which he kind of is.

He leaves the door cracked, but can’t help pausing in front of the vanity mirror. It’s strange to see Tony’s face staring back, stranger still to see his jaw clenched in the way Steve normally clenches, his one eyebrow raised the way Steve normally raises his. And below it all is the web of scars, the glowing blue of the reactor.

“Uh, Tony? Is it safe to be wet?” he calls.

“What, you think I get electrocuted with every shower?” Tony shouts back.

That wry smile, now curling Tony’s lips. “Point taken.” His chuckle makes his diaphragm contract, makes the ribs around the reactor squeeze in, makes him ache to his bones. He doesn’t touch the reactor housing, but he does reach out and touch it in the mirror, tracing the circle of the reflection. He won’t forget.

[definitelyameatbag]

Meet the Cats

Another chapter for the college AU by @drawbauchery!

---

“Well, that’s the Reptile House done. How far until we see the elephants, Laplace?”

Perri turned to look at Laplace’s face as the taller woman flicked through the map of the zoo. She noticed the bright sun bringing out freckles on her face that she hadn’t seen before. Perri already felt her own skin burning in the heat wave, the last gasp of summer weather before the winter chill. Amy, currently enjoying a bag of popcorn beside them, had suggested they go to the city zoo for the weekend, while they still had the good weather. Well, her first idea had been the beach, but Laplace and she bargained that down to only going if the heat lasted long enough after a Sunday to somewhere else, so the zoo it was. Good Lord, Perri thought, what if some of the students saw them?

“The elephants seem to be down that path, on the other side of the tiger pit.”, Laplace pointed forward, on a path parallel to a ring of steel railings circling a pit. The zoo was hardly packed, the summer boom of visitors over, but the path Laplace pointed to had more people than the average they had seen during the day, suggesting it was a place boasting a few star attractions.

“Jeeze, Perri, you’re pretty damn eager to see these elephants.”, Amy noted, ruffling Perri’s hair. Perri blushed, straightening her hair out again.

“I’ve always wanted to ride one, ever since I saw The Jungle Book as a kid. They’re so big an powerful and--oh!”, she turned to run towards a sign next to the railing of the tiger pit.

“‘The Siberian Tiger is the largest cat on Earth. Native to the Sikote-Alin mountain range, less than 600 individuals are alive today, but due to conservation efforts that number is rising. Wysex and Jaden are the third-generation descendants of a donation by Novosibirsk Zoo in the 1980’s. Their coats are of--’”

“Perri, there they are!”, Laplace interrupted Perri’s reading, in a hushed tone. Perri looked up to see two huge tigers emerge from behind a rock formation, drinking from a stream with a few cubs in tow.

“Awww!”, Amy sounded, moving her popcorn to dig into her pocket. “Hey Perri, get into shot, I’ll take your pic!”

Perri looked at her, and acquiesced, “Alright!”, shifting to the right to get between them and the tigers leaning back on the railing. “Tell me how to pose!”

“You’re good for the catwalk, Perri!”, complemented Laplace at seeing Amy fiddle with her camera-phone, who responded with a “Hey-oooo!”

Perri smiled. She hadn’t known either of them for very long, but for their quirks she had thought they were pretty cool people, being friendly enough to let her into their little world.

She barely heard the ‘cheese’ as her ears rang of the bolt that snapped off the connection to the section of railing she was leaning on. She had even less conscious thought to give to the sight of the world spinning as both she and the railing fell backwards.

In just a second, by the moment the camera clicked, she had disappeared under the new entry into the pit.

“Perri!”, screamed Laplace and Amy, running to the edge of the rim. About fifteen feet below them, on a patch of dirt ground, Perri laid on top of the railing, not moving.

Amy ran her hands her her hair, muttering, “Shit, shit, shit, what do we do, what the hell do we do?” Laplace spun around in a panic, looking for a zookeeper. “Help! Someone’s fell into the tiger pit!”

Amy took a deep breath, looking down at Perri, still lying still on the ground below them.

“Fuck me.”

Laplace stood in shock as she saw Amy step off the edge. “Amy!”, she shouted, ducking down to peak just over the edge, seeing the woman landed on her feet at the bottom, “What you doing, you crazy bastard?!”

“Chill!”, Amy shouted back, looking down at Perri to her right. She could see her eyes slowly opening, possibly her regaining consciousness. “Perri, are you alright?!”, Amy asked, much more quietly, putting her hand on her back to shake her.

“Uhhhhh...”, moaned Perri, pushing herself up with her hands, “What happened...”

“We’re in the tiger pit, Perri.”, answered Amy, managed to send a chill down her own spine.

Perri continued lifting herself off the railing, “What...Tiger...”, before freezing when she lifted her head.

“Amy.”, she spoke, as evenly as she could manage. “They see us.”

Amy looked up to see them. Two Siberian Tigers, each one the size of a motorcycle, stood about thirty feet away, watching them. Amy had no idea how fast they could run, but she couldn’t imagine it would give them much time. “Is this where we puff ourselves up to look as imposing as possible?”, she asked Perri.

“No!”, shouted Laplace from above, “They have cubs! Being threatening will just make them want to kill you more!”

“Wow, thanks!”, screamed Perri, harshly, jolting up to a stand. Amy looked behind them for a moment, not an instant more than she dared to, to see her climbing surface. She met with fifteen feet of concrete wall, poured into a concave surface like a seawall, impossible to climb.

They couldn’t go back, and they couldn’t go forward. Amy darted her eyes left and right, trying to see an exit. “Blue! You see a gate anywhere?!”

“I think I see one at the other end! Go right!”

“Alright, P, get ready to run.”, Amy slowly motioned to Perri.

“I can’t.”, Perri replied, refusing to take her eyes off the tigers.

“Perri, seriously, we need to high-tail it, now.”

Perri slowly leaned to her left, to Amy , “I can’t move. I can’t.”

Amy was dripping with sweat, adrenaline shooting through her veins as her heart boomed in her temples, “Perri, this isn’t the time to pa--”

“I can’t. Move.” Perri pleaded, one last time.

Then one of the tigers took one lumbering step forward.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”, Perri yelled, shooting off to the right and sprinting as fast as she could, Amy staying close behind her.

The ground had been mostly level next to the wall, and minus a near slip when crossing the stream that ran through an iron grate, Amy and Perri kept at full sprint. Amy could see that Perri was running with a slight limp, maybe through hurting herself on the railing. She nearly slowed down, the popcorn in her stomach making a quick job of leaving her winded, but a momentary turn of her head to the left, and the spotting of an orange blur, put her back to top speed.

At last, they approached the gate, part of a section of wall made of vertical metal bars, like a prison cell. Amy had slightly overtaken Perri, and banged on the gate, locked shut with a chain. “Hey! Is anybody out there?!”

She turned to check if the tigers were there, but she could only see Perri, ten feet back, on the ground after tripping on a log. “Perri! Ar--”

The tigers emerged, slowly lumbering from the bush, one approaching Perri and the other facing Amy, putting itself between the two women.

Perri rolled onto her back, causing the tiger to halt for a moment, giving her a considering look. Perri was frozen in helplessness, her arms instinctively up and exposing her belly. She started hyperventilating at the thought of disembowelment.

“Amy...please, help me...”, she whimpered, as the tiger took a few more steps toward her. Sniffing her, it began licking her face, her skin getting a few scratches from the tongue meant to peel hide off flesh. It placed its forepaws across her torso, and gave a yawn, baring a mouth that could fit her head inside, armed with a set of thick and sharp teeth. A small voice inside Perri’s mind told her to stay still, accept her fate, and try to faint to avoid the worst of the pain.

She stayed fully aware as 300 pounds of tiger slumped on top of her, using her as a cushion.

“P!”, Amy whispered, losing her mind at the site of what seemed to be Perri being adopted, but still alert at the tiger directly in front of her.

She nearly had a heart attack as the tiger roared and leaped at the bar wall, from which squirted a jet of water aimed for the tiger.

“We’re here, Amy!”, cried Laplace, which Amy could see was holding the hose the water was coming from, “Get Perri!”

“How?!”, screamed Amy, looking at Perri, who now seemed to be having her face licked by one of the cubs.

“Here, take this!”, yelled another voice, likely a zookeeper, pushing something through the bars.

Amy grabbed it immediately, looking at it in her hands. It was a brown leather bullwhip.

“What the hell do I do with this?!”, scoffed Amy.

“Smack them!”, ordered the zookeeper, “Get them to retreat for the cubs’ safety!”

Adrenalin continued to numb away at her sense of danger as she unfurled the whip, letting about ten feet of leather strip fall to the ground as she took a few swings to get used to the weight.

Moving her arm in a great arc, she took one first swing at the approaching tiger, hitting the ground just beside it, causing it to flinch but not much. Amy tried shifting around it, sliding right in a semicircle she planned to eventually reach Perri on. She took another swing, this time a direct hit on the snout, causing a blood-curdling snarl.

The tiger on top of Perri also roared, jumping off her and dashing behind the tiger facing Amy.

After a few more swings, Amy praying each time to not hit one of the cubs and shifting a little more inbetween the opening each hit gave her, she managed to get next to Perri, still catatonic on the ground.

“Perri, I think we need to get out of Dodge.”, Amy assured her, in a sense of bravado that even she thought was a little misplaced.

Perri muttered something incomprehensible as she lifted herself up and took shelter behind Amy, leaning onto her for support. She managed to collect herself enough to say, “My leg feels like it’s broken. I need carried if I’m going to move.”

“Well, I’m not going up against these things without a whip!”, snapped Amy.

Water squirted out of the bars again, distracting the tigers. Lapis shouted, “Try heading back to where you feel in! I’ll be there, we’ll pull you up with the whip!”

In a spin, Amy scooped up Perri and began to run back where they came. Perri gripped on as tightly as she could as Amy leaped over the stream, sprinting the full distance back to the railing.

Her arms and legs ached as she placed Perri onto the ground. “Alright, P, get on my back.”, she gasped, struggling for air as she sat in front of Perri. Perri dutifully put her arms around her neck, as Amy leaned forward to get standing again. “Alright, Laplace, c’mon, get here...”

“Amy.”, said Perri, into her ear. “If we die here, let me just say...you looked really cool swinging that whip.”

Amy gave a breathless laugh as her free hand gripped onto Perri’s. “And thanks, P, for being so small and light.”

Perri managed a tight squeeze before Laplace’s head peeked over the edge. “Alright, throw me it!”

“Hold on, P.”, Amy put her whole body into the swing of the roll of whip, managing to get at least one of the ends up for Laplace to catch.

After a few seconds, Laplace called out again, this time out of sight. “OK! Here it comes!”

An end of the whip fell over the edge, the tip ending just about a foot above the reach of Amy’s arms.

“Oh, come on!”

“Wait!, shouted Perri, shifting her weight up her back, stretching out and grabbing at the whip, rolling a length into her hands. “Grab my hips!”

Amy did a 180, Perri left hanging on to the whip-turned-rope. Amy wrapped her arms around Perri’s hips, clasping on tight.

And then she noticed the orange blobs exiting the bush.

“PULL US UP! PULL US UP!”

Amy felt her feet leave the ground, just as Perri cried out in pain. Amy normally felt fine about her weight, but Perri probably didn’t feel good about the weight of two people going through her spine, arms and hands.

The tigers were only a few feet away as they really began to start getting lifted. Amy swung up her legs, in preparation for a tiger jump.

Fortunately, blessedly, they reached the edge of the wall, and she felt people pull her and Perri back onto the surface.

The concrete surface was nearly the most beautiful thing she saw that day. 

“Me and my fucking great ideas!”, screamed Laplace, which Amy looked up to see the face of. She was overflowing with tears, hair frazzled and jaw clenched, as inelegant as she ever saw her before. “I nearly got you two killed!”

Amy and Perri looked at her, then at eachother, and began to laugh.

“What, what’s so funny?!”, Laplace shouted, “You were nearly eaten by fucking tigers! Do you understand how much danger you were in?!”

As one, they tackled Laplace to the ground with a hug.

“I’m being serious! I nearly killed you two with that idiotic id--”

“Shut up and hug us, Blue.”, Amy commanded.

Sighing, Laplace gave in, and wrapped an arm each around Perri and Amy.

---

Wednesday morning. Laplace was at her desk, an arm lying on the desk to form a little hamper for Pumpkin to sit in and stay warm. With her other hand, she held up a bottle for Pumpkin to drink milk from, which they were getting through voraciously.

Perri walked in through the main entrance, only slightly limping.

“Hello!”, greeted Laplace, looking up from the tiny Pumpkin. “You’ve been let off quickly!”

“Yeah.”, replied Perri, “It was just a sprain. Still not something to run on, but not too bad. I see you’re bonding with Pumpkin.”

Laplace gave a grin that was downright cheeky. “Yeah, I’ve moved them to my desk. I thought you and Amy could do with being away from cats for a while.”

Perri grimaced. “I’ll be at my desk. You can get the coffee.”