#the urge to throw a curveball in this. so close to putting 'on the road again' by willie nelson or something

[whataboutyouisamascot]

🎶✨when u get this, list 5 songs u like to listen to, and publish. then, send this ask to some of your favourite followers- or simply answer this for your own, there's no pressure! (positivity is cool)🎶✨ 💛

Hello Tonee! 💚 I'm going to challenge myself and not make every song Silent Planet or Sleep Token

Nervosa - Silent Planet

Heartbreak Or Death - The Brobecks

When You Break - Bears Den

Vore - Sleep Token

Kingdom of Cards - Bad Omens

[cami-chats]

Cats Get Dates

Fandom: Marvel, The Umbrella Academy (TV)

Pairing: Five Hargreeves/Tony Stark

Warnings: None

On AO3 or below

Tony didn't think about it too much before putting up the sign in his window. He felt kind of stupid as he did it-- and also like he was in that one Taylor Swift music video-- but also, that cat was super cute and he wanted to know its name. Calling it 'the stupidly cute, fluffy cat' when he was telling Jim about it was getting a little lengthy; not to mention Jim had thought he was talking about more than one cat for about six months.

Your cat's really cute. So white and fluffy, I love them was what the sign said, but it was enough. With the way windows and floors worked in these weirdass apartment buildings, he wasn't risking much by admitting the cutest cat in the world was, in fact, the cutest cat in the world to a bunch of strangers other than the one stranger he had in mind.

The next day, there was a sign in the window with an arrow pointing down to the cat's favorite lounging spot: Mr. Pennycrumb (yes, really).

Tony wasn't the best artist, but he did a pretty good rendition of Mr. Pennycrumb in a suit, with a monocle and a walking stick. I love him. He didn't hesitate to put that one up either, and he thought that would be the end of it.

He should've known that the universe would decide to throw him a nice little curveball. The next time he peeked across the street to see if Mr. Pennycrumb was taking a nap or licking his paw, he instead saw a handsome man with a criminal jawline sitting in the window, writing in a notebook.

Tony was just tired enough to sit at his own desk and stare an unreasonable amount.

Mr. Pennycrumb's owner looked up after a while and saw him. He raised an eyebrow.

Tony reached for the poster that had his drawing of Mr. Pennycrumb in a suit-- which he kept by the window simply because he wanted to keep the drawing but didn't have any other place to put it-- and held it up. Then he set it down and put his hands together in a pleading fashion.

The cat owner smirked in a very self-satisfied manner, then disappeared for a moment. When he came back, he had Mr. Pennycrumb in his arms. He plopped him in front of the window, where the cat was happy to stretch out and roll onto his back.

Tony blew him a kiss, and he was glad when the other man chuckled before turning back to his writing. Cause otherwise that would've been really awkward. Mr. Pennycrumb was unfairly adorable, and definitely worth a little embarrassment for, if the situation ever called for it. Plus, if the cat's owner had figured out that Tony was checking him out, he might've decided to close his shades, and that would've been a real tragedy.

*

Their first real, face-to-face contact came sometime after three in the morning when the two of them were the only people with both their lights on and their shades open.

Mr. Pennycrumb's owner was the one to initiate it with a note in his window that read, Do you have coffee?

Tony wrote back. Yes.

Can I have some? Everywhere's closed. And it was true. Everywhere was closed, but fuck only knew why. There was a college in this city; surely there was at least one cafe that could turn a profit from running twenty-four hours. There were grocery stores that were still open, but the closest one was two blocks away-- considerably further than across the street, and a lot more of a pain.

In response, Tony wrote down his apartment number. Someone with a cat that cute wouldn't murder him after asking for coffee. If there were two good qualities a person could have, it would be liking coffee and loving their cat. Or maybe it was loving coffee and liking their cat. Either way, it was good combination to have. Not to mention that Tony was infinitely more likely to be kidnapped, not murdered flat out. And the kidnapping type had the same look about them, which Mr. Pennycrumb's owner did not have.

When he saw the man's light go off, he got up to make a new pot of coffee. He still had some in there for himself, so he dumped the rest of it in a spare mug and started a new one. He had a huge ass thermos around here somewhere-- a gift from Jim, and he'd made sure it was big enough for a pot of coffee plus all the cream that Tony liked to add, because Jim was the best gift-giver in the entire world.

As Tony crawled in a cupboard to find it, he wondered why he didn't use it more often. Usually, it was to avoid questions. If people asked him one question, they took it as an invitation for more conversation, which was pretty much the opposite of what Tony wanted when he was carrying around a pot of coffee.

It was only after he unearthed it that he remembered Jim had sort of taken it away for a week when Tony had decided to brew his coffee with an energy drink instead of water. It had tasted like shit, but it had kept him awake enough to keep up with his coursework while also finishing off the designs for the upcoming expo and giving his notes to Howard about the latest prototype. Now that that horrible time had passed though, he should be able to start using it again.

Someone knocked on the door as he was halfway through pouring the coffee into the giant thermos, so he put it down to answer the door. As expected, it was the neighbor-- if neighbor could be used to describe someone that lived in a separate building on the opposite side of the road. He was even more handsome up close, which was a dangerous thing to be noticing in the middle of the night when his self-control was wearing thin. He didn't have much of a filter to begin with, and it only became thinner when he was tired.

"Hey," the possibly-a-neighbor but definitely-the-cute-cat-owner said. "Thanks for this."

"Yeah, no problem. I can't make it a day without coffee." Tony sort of forgot to invite him in, but he turned to go finish pouring the coffee and figured that his sort-of-neighbor would either follow him in or stay in the doorway. Tony would be very tempted to ask him to stay forever if he had remembered to ask him inside in the first place. As he started to pour the remainder of the pot, he heard the door close, and a second later, the guy walked into the kitchen. "I'm Tony, by the way."

"Five. Yes, like the number."

"Your parents weren't very imaginative."

"Actually, I only have one sibling."

"That's even worse."

"I've always thought so," Five said mildly.

"Is there a story there or are they just weird as shit?"

Five snorted. "If they had reasons, they never bothered to share them with me." Then he tilted his head curiously. "Does that thermos fit an entire pot of coffee?"

"Yep."

"That's amazing. Where did you get it?"

"It was a gift, so I don't know."

"Hm, shame."

Tony screwed the lid on and held it out to him.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

"I'll try to have it back in a couple days."

"Sure. And if you forget, I can always add it to a sign when I'm asking about Mr. Pennycrumb. How is he anyways?"

"A pain in the ass," Five said, rolling his eyes as they walked to the door. "He was playing with a plastic bag, got his head caught, flipped out, and ended up shredding it over half the apartment."

"And that's why I admire other people's cats from afar instead of getting my own."

"A wise decision," Five said flatly, but with a hint of a smile across his mouth. Tony had the strong urge to kiss him, but he was too far away for Tony to do it as an impulse decision. "See you around."

"Yep, see you."

Having a crush from a distance had been weird and a little creepy of him, but he didn't think the one minute of conversation with Five really justified it. If anything, it made it worse. Jim would probably tell him to be a normal neighbor and not make contact unless they were passing each other on the street-- but then, Jim was also convinced that Tony was going to be murdered horribly in the middle of the night because he hadn't been looking where he was going, so Tony took everything he said with a grain of salt.

*

Tony got back to his apartment one day to find a bag hanging on the door. He peeked inside and saw that it was the thermos he'd loaned Five, so he picked it up and brought it in with him.

He forgot to put it away for a while, so it was almost a week later when he grabbed the thermos to use it and a picture fell out. Curious, Tony reached for it, then he laughed. It was a polaroid of Mr. Pennycrumb. He was sitting up straight, fluffy tail curled around the front of his little feet and looking intensely at the camera-- or, rather, the person holding the camera, but it was the same effect. On the white bottom, Five had written 'Thanks' in sharpie, in all caps like he was an old man.

Tony hung it on the fridge, then went back to putting his bag together for the day.

*

The next contact came when Tony was settling in for the evening, ready to stay up all night writing code, only to realize that he didn't have enough sugar for his coffee to last all night. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, and fuck some more, he was not going to make it through the night unless he had caffeine and sugar. He glanced out the window automatically and saw that Five's light was on, and he was sitting at his desk.

There was no guarantee that he'd look up, but Tony had to try.

Do you have sugar?

Five looked up when he held the sign in front of his window. He reached to the side and wrote, and a moment later, Tony was reading what he'd written. Only if you'll come over here to get it.

Tony nodded vigorously. He could definitely walk over there. No way in hell was he going to ask Five for a favor and then expect for him to walk over to Tony's place.

Five flipped over his paper and wrote his apartment number.

Tony got up, shoved on some shoes, and hurried over. It was a good thing that it was a short walk, because it was kind of cold out, and he hadn't grabbed a jacket.

It was barely five seconds after he knocked that the door opened. "How much sugar do you need?"

"I don't know, maybe a cup?" Tony said. "It's for my coffee."

"You put sugar in your coffee?" Five asked, raising an eyebrow judgmentally.

"You don't?" Tony asked, mirroring his expression. "I guess that's fine, if you want to be miserable."

Five rolled his eyes and walked to the kitchen, pouring sugar from a large bucket to a smaller container. "Is that enough?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Five put the lid on and handed it over. Then, scarcely after Tony had his hands on it, Five put a scrap of paper on top. "That's my number. You can use it the next time you need sugar instead of hoping I look up at the right time."

Tony's heart decided to be a traitorous little bastard and started beating faster, but he hoped it didn't show in his voice when he said, "Cool; I'll do that. Thanks again," he said.

He made it back over to his apartment, saved Five's number in his phone, then sent him a text.

This is Tony, so you have my number too.

He tossed his phone onto the desk and went to pour some sugar in his coffee. On the desk, his phone buzzed with a new message.

Good to know, was all Five said. A minute later, he sent a photo of Mr. Pennycrumb. It was obvious that he'd just taken it, and the cat was glaring at him as it sat atop his laptop keyboard. The King of the universe says hello.

Tell him I love him.

And have it go to his head? But your message has been passed on.

*

Things continued in that vein for a while. Five would send him pictures of Mr. Pennycrumb in various poses-- Tony's favorite was the one where the cat had climbed into the filled bathtub and then squalled about it like it was Five's fault-- and in return, Tony would gush about how cute Mr. Pennycrumb was.

After a couple weeks of that, they started complaining about their class work, which rapidly turned into helping each other. It's not that either of them was stupid or refused to do their own work, but Five's grasp of physics was much better than Tony's (to say nothing of his understanding of chaos theory), and in return, Tony helped him with the finer points of chemistry.

And since they were helping each other with work, they might as well meet in person rather than halting texts back and forth whenever they remembered to check their phone. Tony didn't think anything of it until it was leading up to the end of the semester and he went to Five's favorite coffee shop to buy him a cup before he headed over-- instead of just letting him brew coffee like normal. Since when did Tony go out of his way to do something nice? The answer used to be: hardly ever. Now, it looked like the answer was: for about three weeks. Because he'd been doing things to try and be nice to Five for a while, even if it inconvenienced him.

With his usual tact, Tony knocked on the door and as soon as Five answered, he asked, "Are we dating?"

"We won't be if you don't hand over the coffee," Five said, his eyes going straight to the cup with laser focus.

Tony handed it over.

Five took a sip, savored it, then brushed a kiss over Tony's cheek. "Come on, I ordered your shitty pizza, and it's useless if it goes cold."

Tony walked in, closing the door behind him. Well, the kiss answered that question. Or maybe it was the way that Five had answered his question. Either way, Tony now had a boyfriend, and that was wonderful. "It makes a wonderful snack four hours into studying," Tony argued. He knew this for a fact after a dozen times of doing it. "You can shove it in your mouth without tasting it, and you don't have to wait for something to be delivered."

"Congratulations," Five said flatly. "I'm not trying it."

"Fine, suffer then."