Nine Lives

October 5th

~Wanda's POV~

I was sitting in bed with Cat. I decided I was just going to call her 'Cat' as Holly did in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

"So Cat, what do you want to do today?" Cat just tilted her head. I just wish I could read her mind like I can with humans.

But I haven't actually tried with animals before, but Cat seems pretty smart so maybe it will work with her.

I hovered my hand above Cat's head. I could feel my magic begin to work but before I could get into her mind she hissed at me. It was so unexpected that it pulled me from my magic trance. My eyes changed from red back to their normal color.

"You've never hissed at me before" Cat just looked at me. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to find your owner. If you could help me out that'd be greatly appreciated" I said sarcastically.

What could Cat do? She's, well she's a cat.

I opened my web browser and was about to search for missing cat posts online when Cat crawled onto my lap and stepped on my computer. "Cat, that's not very nice" she hopped off and I turned my attention back to the screen.

The search bar was now filled with a bunch of random letters. I was about to delete it when I saw something. There was one word among the jumbled letters.

"King?" Did she do that on purpose? I mean she is smart.

She just meowed at me. Dammit. "You have no idea how much I wish you could just talk"

I was waiting for her to magically be able to speak to me like the cat from Hocus Pocus but instead, she just started licking her paw and cleaning herself.

I stroked her head before I closed my computer and got out of bed.

Almost the entire team was in the living room when I entered. Steve is the only person who didn't know about Cat.

"Steve, could you do me a favor?" He nodded. "Sure, what do you need?"

"Doesn't matter, just do something for me" he scrunched his eyebrows together. "Uhm okay, I'll be back I guess." He was so confused but he did it anyway. He's such a sweet guy. "Wanda, what was that about?"

"I just needed to get rid of him for a minute. I found out something about Cat's owner. So I was just sitting in bed and I tried to get into Cat's head using my magic but she hissed at me and I said 'you've never hissed at me before and she just looked at me-" Carol cut me off.

"Wanda! What did you find out?" She asked me to get to the point.

"King?" All of a sudden I was unsure of myself. What if it was an accident?

Bucky chuckled which pulled me out of my head before I started spiraling into my self-doubt.

"What's so funny?" Sam asked.

"Nothing. It's not funny." He tried to shrug us off but now we were all curious.

"Never mind about it. It doesn't matter" we all gave up knowing we weren't going to get anything out of him unless he willingly gave it up.

"Okay, but what is King?"

"Is it a name?"

"Maybe the chess piece"

"Could be a street name"

They all started to yell out their thoughts at once and it was giving me a migraine trying to focus on just one of them.

"Guys! Shut up for a second!" I yelled and they all stopped talking.

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today," Natasha said and I just glared at her.

"Sorry but it was getting a bit chaotic" they all looked at me concerningly and I just shrugged them off. "My first thought was a name, but what kind of name is King?" I asked changing the subject.

"A last name?" Natasha said from behind the book she was reading.

Nat appeared as if she couldn't be bothered with this but I know that if I asked she'd dedicate all her time to finding Cat's owner. Natasha was just amazing when she wanted to be. But I would never ask such a thing of her for something as small as this. She already does so much for me, some she doesn't even think I know about but I do and I'm just so grateful to have her on my side.

"That makes sense. But I'm curious how you got this information." Maria asked and everyone including Natasha looked at me with anticipation.

"She typed it out," I said slowly and they all exchanged looks with each other before turning back to me. The kind of looks that say 'she sounds crazy and is probably sleep deprived'

"I know it sounds crazy but I think Cat knew what she was doing" they all looked pretty skeptical but most of them gave in since we didn't have any other leads.

"So if Cat was smart enough to give us her owner's last name, why couldn't she give us the first name?" Sam asked and I was about to answer but I stopped myself.

"You were probably looking to me to have all the answers. Well, I have no answers! That's why I came here and told you guys." I shouted and they all looked at me with concern written on their faces.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled. It's just I feel helpless, I don't know anything and it's frustrating." I explained and they seemed to all understand my sudden outburst.

"It's okay, Wands. We get it. I'm sure we'll find her owner eventually. It's not that big of a deal." Carol stood up and hugged me tightly and I allowed myself to relax in her arms.

"Wanda I didn't know what to get you so I made you a sandwich" my heart melted when Steve came walking back into the room with a ham and cheese sandwich. He's so cute sometimes.

I nodded to him in thanks before taking the sandwich and going back to my room.