The Chronicles of Idiocy

THE CHRONICLES OF IDIOCY.

Links to each chapter;
Chapter One - Steve Gets a Cat

-Prologue-

When wandering on the outskirts of a large city, one might normally expect peace and quiet. Perhaps a tranquil walk through lush countryside? Or sometimes just the crappier areas of that busy area. But one certainly wouldn't expect the dysfunctional place that is Shield Street.

Upon first glance, Shield Street appears very average. Nothing seems too out of place. It is simply a calm street along the edge of a busy town. However, take a closer look and you'll? see. The main causes of the insanity of Shield Street are a large apartment building and three small houses. In these establishments live a group of friends. A rather peculiar group of friends.

Steve Rogers, an ex-army sergeant, was the first to move to Shield Street. After retiring from the army early due to a wound to the shoulder, Steve was homeless. After a week or so of hopeless wandering and skipping from house to house, he finally wound up on Shield Street. After purchasing an aparment, it came to his attention that he was having difficulty paying for said apartment. And so the search for a roommate began.

Next there was Clint who moved to Shield Street after completing a top secret mission which he refuses to disclose the details of. In the beginning, Clint actually spent time in his own quaint little house across the street. Nowadays he just sleeps on everyone else's couches, not that anybody particularly minds. They have long gotten used to waking up with him in their living room. They being the rest of the strange bunch who reside on this somewhat awkward street.

Thor arrived in the months following Clint's first venture into Steve's apartment. With his tendancy to speak as though he is from medieval times and the odd way that he seems to have missed the important discoveries of the past few hudred years, everyone often cracks jokes about how he must be some sort of creepy Norse God or something. The lack of technology in Thor's house is actually astounding. If it hadn't been for Tony moving into one of the apartments nearby he would have remained devoid of a TV and microwave forever. Doomed to cook outside on an open fire as he hasn't the foggiest how to use an oven.
Along with Thor came his younger brother Loki, who promptly took up residence under the porch. Honestly, it freaked out most of the street.

By the time Phil ended up on Shield Street, Steve had almost lost all hope of finding a suitable roommate. When the two met, it was almost instantly decided that they would live together for they got along rather well. Well, if rather well means that Phil came to worship the ground Steve walked upon. Steve, on the other hand, simply thought that Phil was a really nice guy and enjoyed his company. Plus, Phil didn't mind Steve's weird obsession with cats, nor all the cat hair that covered the place.

Bruce quietly moved into the apartment above Steve and Phil without much fuss. No one really noticed that anything had changed until Clint suddenly realised that the apartment was no longer empty and he had another couch to sleep on. Steve had wandered up to Bruce's apartment to give him a nice welcoming gift(which happened to be some of the muffins that Bruce now has a great weakness for) and Bruce soon became the newest member of this dysfunctional group of friends.

Tony made his way to Shield Street after having been lectured to death by the one and only Pepper Potts. She had demanded that he stop winding up drunk and passed out in bars in every corner of the city and had decided that he should live in a quiet place in an average apartment. And that is how Tony Stark ended up dumped on the corner of Shield Street. After pouting for an hour or so in a small coffee shop at the end of the street, Tony stepped outside and noticed Bruce standing outside of the apartment building. The two became fast friends after bonding over the mutual love of science and Tony was offered a place to stay.
Despite their obvious differences, Tony also got on rather swimmingly with Thor and at some point when over at his house, organised to pay for the construction of Loki's current residence; a well built treehouse in Thor's garden. No one bothers to ask how it happened but Tony also ended up paying for Thor's house to become well stocked with the latest in everything from fridges to a playstation 3.

Natasha was the last to arrive on Shield Street. In fact, no one is really sure where she came from. One day the apartment across from Bruce and Tony was empty, and the next it wasn't. This was extremely suspicious (and still is), but everyone has learned not to question Natasha. That is, unless you want a few less teeth and a much uglier face.
The story of how Natasha came to be friends with the rest of these lunatics is a rather unfortunate one. Well, unfortunate for Tony, that is.
There are many stories of that first day Natasha spent in her apartment. Most consist of Tony's attempts to hit on her which all ended with an unexpected ass kicking.

---

Annnd thus we have the Prologue. Avengers story if you couldn't tell XD

-Chapter One - Steve Gets a Cat-

Soft snores came from the centre of the living room in Steve's apartment. The couch was once again inhabited by one Clint Barton. However, this particular morning, a creature had decided to take up residence on the afore-mentioned's chest. I say chest and mean neck, and the creature's fur had somehow managed to get itself into Clint's mouth.
When Clint's eyes blinked open to see the big ball of black fur laying on him, it wasn't inaccurate to say that he positively freaked out. The cat, for that was what the creature was, quickly hopped off of Clint's chest as he rolled off of the sofa, scratching at his tongue to get the disgusting taste of cat fur out of his mouth.
"HOLY HAWKS!" yelled Clint, refraining from swearing in the presence of Steve as he didn't want to offend him. However, Clint was rather annoyed by the sudden prescence of Steve's new furry friend and didn't refrain from saying so.

Steve wandered over to the couch to rescue the cat from where it was perched on the top of the couch. He cradled it in his arms, the cat making a ridiculously loud purring noise that Clint visibly cringed at.
"This is Felix!" grinned Steve cheerfully, "I found him outside last night."
Clint glared at the new inhabitant of the house.
"He probably has diseases... or fleas," he protested, not liking the new animal one bit.

"He doesn't!" smiled Steve, "I took him to the animal doctor early this morning and they gave him the all clear. No one knows who he is so I'm going to keep him!"

Clint pouted, not enjoying the idea of having to share one of his numerous couches with the furry creature. "But Steeeeevee! It sheds all over the place! In my mouth for example!"

"If you didn't sleep on my couch with your mouth wide open, that wouldn't happen," Steve deadpanned. It seemed that nothing would sway his opinion on the cat.
Clint glanced around the room, looking for Steve's roommate... who should be up by now.
"What does Phil have to say about the cat?"
"He's fine with him."
Clint nearly cursed at his failed attempt to get rid of the animal. He should have known better than to think that Phil of all people would disagree with Steve. After all, the man practically worshipped him, not that Steve ever seemed to notice the 'worshipping' part. As far as he was concerned they were just friends who shared similar interests.
Steve's smile remained intact as he gently rubbed the cat's head. The purring grew louder and it was easy to tell that Clint was about to tip over the edge. If there was one thing in the world that he hated, it was cats and their obnoxious purring.

"Felix," muttered Clint under his breath, "More like Satan."
Clint turned to leave the apartment, deciding that he was going to need backup in his protest against the cat. Steve just looked on with a slightly confused look on his face. He didn't understand why Clint didn't seem to like Felix...


On the way up to Bruce and Tony's apartment, Clint nearly walked straight into Phil, who was carrying what looked to be bags full of cat food and cat toys. Sticking out of one of the bags was what looked like a fabric cat bed. Clint rolled his eyes. Obviously this cat was going to be spoiled rotten. Clint then promptly whizzed past Phil and headed upstairs.


"Steve has a cat," Clint announced after bursting through the doors of Bruce and Tony's apartment. They had been discussing one of Tony's numerous inventions when Clint had appeared and had just sort of stared at him for a few moments until Bruce decided to react.

"Aww! What does it look like?" asked Bruce excitedly.

Clint just stared for a moment before replying.
"Who cares what it looks like-"

"What's it's name?"
Bruce's question had cut off the insult that Clint had been about to throw towards the roof of Bruce and Tony's apartment... as that was the closest he could get to throwing it in the cat's direction. Clint just decided to ignore Bruce and looked to Tony.

Tony simply blinked and replied, "Good for Steve."
The device he had been showing to Bruce was still awkwardly balanced on his left palm, though it was making some weird whirring noise.

Clint's rage against Felix seemed to be a losing battle. If Tony Stark didn't care that the cat was basically hell-spawn then no one would. As Clint turned to leave, he heard the unmistakeable sounds of an invention gone wrong as the device in Tony's hand began to spark.


Heading back up to Steve and Phil's apartment, Clint hatched a plan. It was genius by his standards (which were honestly pretty low) and seemingly foolproof.
Upon arriving at Steve and Phil's place, Clint found the apartment empty. Well...empty other than Felix of course. Clint narrowed his eyes as the black and white cat rubbed its head on the side of the sofa.
"Creepy creature..." Clint murmured as he pulled on latex gloves. No way was he going to pick that thing up without some sort of protection from its numerous diseases! (Clint didn't care what Steve said, this thing was definitely riddled with several different versions of the plague.)
Clint picked up the cat with a lot more care than he had expected of himself... though he did hold it out at arms length as he carried it downstairs through the apartment. Felix, for some odd reason, did not struggle throughout this, but rather stayed quite still. To anyone watching, it would look like some crazy person was trying to reenact the first scene of The Lion King as Clint walked down the street towards Thor's house.

Nick Fury has lived on Shield Street since the "dawn of time" according to most residents. He is mostly known for his tendancy to yell at people when they get their things on his lawn.... and then he refuses to return the items he finds there. This fact was crucial to Clint's plan.
Fury, being Thor and Loki's neighbour, was rather used to the many shenanigans of the street and so when Felix turned up on his lawn, he thought of it as 'just another Tuesday.' However before he could wander out into his well kept front garden to collect the cat, Steve stepped out of Thor's front door.
Clint, using his apparantly lightning fast reflexes, shot up the nearest tree and cowered in it, hoping that Steve wouldn't see him. The tree, however, happened to be the only one that was actually part of Fury's front garden and a fullgrown man in a tree was pretty easy to spot.
Honestly, if you couldn't see him I'd refer you to a specialist. Clearly Steve didn't need a specialist, for he easily saw Clint and was rather confused as to why he was hiding in a tree. That is, until he spotted Felix sitting in the middle of Fury's yard.

Knowing about Fury's notorious reputation for keeping whatever turned up on his lawn, Steve promptly dropped the shopping bag he was carrying and rushed to rescue the young feline. Seeing as Steve was occupied, Clint figured that this was as good a time as any to get the heck out of there.
He climbed back down from the tree with the ease of a squirrel and dashed towards Thor's house. Apparantly that was the safest place he could think of right now... which was stupid because Steve wasn't even a hundred metres away from Thor's front door.
Nobody said that Clint was intelligent.
Clint regretted these actions when Phil wandered out of Thor's house with Thor himself right behind him.


"What part of putting Felix on Mr.Fury's lawn seemed like a good idea?"

They had returned to Steve and Phil's apartment. Felix was once again settled on the couch, curled up in the space where Clint's head would usually be resting. Thor had gone home after Clint had pointed out that Loki could be raiding the cupboards as we speak (He refused to do his own shopping) and Phil had retreated to his bedroom, despite his support for Steve's cause.

"The part where he would keep the cat and it wouldn't interfere in my sleeping..?" Clint said this in a slightly more hopeful tone, realising how selfish it must sound to everyone else.

Steve raised an eyebrow, "Aren't there like, five other couches for you to sleep on?"

"But yours is the most comfortable!" protested Clint, "And I don't have access to Loki's..."

All of a sudden, the door to Steve's apartment opened. Well, when I say 'opened', I really mean 'was kicked in.' A rather annoyed looking, red-headed woman stood in the doorway.

"Uhh..is there a reason you kicked the door in Natasha...?" Steve appeared very perplexed by the peculiar turn of events, but remained composed, as if this had happened more than once before.

"The door was locked."
"No it wasn't."
"Are you sure? I could have sworn it was." There was a seemingly innocent tone to her voice.
"Not to seem rude or anything, but why are you here exactly?" Steve knew better than to keep arguing with Natasha.
"My cooking is gone. And I know it was you, Clint."
She shot a glare across the room to Clint who was now cowering behind the sofa.
"I don't know what you're talking about..." Clint answered, although it wasn't very convincing seeing as he was hiding from the inevitable onslaught of Natasha's rage.

Nat's glare grew into a look of pure loathing for Clint in that moment. If there was one thing she disliked, it would be when people lied to her. She marched over to where Clint was hiding. "Get your butt upstairs and cook some more. Right now. You know what happens when we don't have a constant stock of those muffins."
Her tone was extremely calm. Too calm. Most people would have started shouting by now.

"But Nat! You know I'm a terrible cook! Besides, Bruce only likes your's and Steve's muffins."

"Then take Steve with you. I'm sure he'd love to help you cook some replacements."
This was true as Steve actually really liked to cook. Steve tended to appreciate and find some enjoyment out of those little domestic jobs that people often hated... such as cooking or doing the dishes. Steve just found doing the dishes quite therapeutic

"Wouldn't that just be Steve doing the work..?" Honestly, Clint was only trying to buy himself time to come up with a way to get out of baking.

"Nope because you would still be helping him."
Natasha was already ushering Clint towards the door, where Steve was crouched, mourning it's passing. He was mumbling under his breath and Clint caught something that sounded like, "My door...My poor, innocent door."

Once Nat and Clint reached the door, she began escorting Steve out of the apartment as well.
"Tony will pay for your door," she claimed, giving him reason to leave his home, despite the now wide open view of it the rest of the floor had.


After baking a variety of cakes and pastries to Natasha's liking, Steve and Clint ended up back at the gaping hole that was now Steve and Phil's door.

"Clint, you are going to sit down and play with Felix! He's really a great cat! I know you'll like him if you just try to keep an open mind about it," Steve reasoned, nudging Clint inside the apartment.

Clint had decided that he may as well play with the most-likely satanic furball after being shot a full blast of Steve's puppy dog face. It wasn't his fault, honestly. There was hardly a person on Earth who could resist the puppy dog face.

And that was how Clint found himself sitting in the middle of Steve and Phil's floor, a fluffy ball of black and white fur sitting right in his lap. "Errr..Hi...Felix." Felix then proceeded to paw playfully at Clint's nose. Of course, this was taken as an attempt at murder by Clint.

"ASSAULT! ASSAULT! THIS THING IS LUCIFER HIMSELF."

Steve walked out from the kitchen and observed as Felix attempted to play with the strings on Clint's shorts. "Clint. He's trying to play."

"He was clawing me! Look at his fur, Steve. It's black. He's Satan."

"You do know that Satan is a fallen angel right?"

"Fallen. For a reason!"

Steve sighed exasperatedly, "Clint. He's a harmless cat."

Clint's frown showed that he still thought otherwise.
"Oh yea? Then why do they go around killing innocent birds?"

"What does that have to do with anything!?"
Clint didn't reply and instead shot some rather dirty looks at Felix.

"Why do you seem to hate cats so much, anyway?"

Clint opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again as he thought better of it. He turned his gaze from the cat and stared off into the distance in a rather cliche manner.
"I... When I was a kid...I had a pet cockatiel. His name was Chirin. He would repeat little things back to me and I'd always teach him swear words to annoy my parents. Anyhow,
my neighbor had a cat. It was black and white... a lot like Felix. One day... this cat wandered into my house through the bathroom window. I used to let Chirin out when no one was home so he could stretch his wings. The next the I knew... this cat had come up to me and Chirin was in his mouth."
By this point, Clint had begun to tear up at these childhood memories. He could recall everything like it was only yesterday.
"The cat... he dropped it at my feet like I was supposed to congratulate him for killing my poor Chirin!"

A single dramatic tear rolled down Clint's cheek as he took a moment of silence in memory of the late Chirin.

While Clint was sniffling and tearing up, Steve seemed rather surprised that Clint had such a reaction to the death of a bird. He awkwardly patted Clint's shoulder, not really sure how to respond to Clint's emotional story.

Natasha, who had been hiding just outside of the apartment so that she could listen in, wandered upstairs. She seemed content now that she knew there was an actual reason for Clint's absurd behaviour.

"Look, Clint. I understand that you must have really loved that bird. But not all cats kill other people's pets. Felix is really a good cat, so can't you learn to forgive and forget?" Steve made a rather diplomatic proposition.

Clint turned to look at Felix. He appeared to be deep in thought for a moment. "Alright, Luci... I guess I can try to tolerate you. Just don't sleep near my face next time." He shot a glare at the cat to go along with his last statement.


It was another average morning on Shield Street. Well, as average as a day on Shield Street can be. Clint had decided to crash on Steve and Phil's couch once more after having cleared things up with Felix. He gently blinked his eyes open only to find that once again, there was a huge ball of fur residing on his chest. This time, however, it appeared his mouth was clear.
Clint promptly sat up, Felix only just managing to hop off of his chest.
"Jesus Christ!" he yelled, though his voice was not filled with nearly as much rage as before.
He looked over to the kitchen where Steve just stood chuckling as he made himself breakfast.

"Have a nice nap?" asked Steve

Clint replied only by throwing one of the couch pillows at Steve's head (and missing...) before he turned over and went back to sleep.


And so the first chapter.
Enjoy I guess xD