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There is a orange and brown speckled feather on the floor just outside of the kitchen; Tony stares at it for a moment before bending down to pick it up and spin it between his fingers. The colors are odd, blurring and fading instead of an even pattern, and he tries to place why it looks familiar. Combined with the fact that it's the size of a large goose feather, it reasons it must have come from a large bird.
Tony looks up and down the hallway, half expecting some giant mottled duck to peer around the corner at him; but all he can see is another smaller feather on the floor further down the hall. “JARVIS, there anyone here I don't know about?”
“No sir. Doctor Banner is in the man laboratory working on his current research. Agent Barton and Agent Coulson are in medical bay.”
“Medical bay? Everything okay?” he asks, walking over to the second feather and picking it up – this one is mostly brown, with only the slightest orange dappled across the tip.
There's a slight pause before JARVIS answers, and isn't that interesting. “Yes sir, I believe they are just fine.” It’s a bullshit answer if Tony's ever heard one.
“JARVIS, I don't know who programmed you, but your capacity for lying really needs to be improved.”
In the elevator there is a small drift of cream colored down in the corner, and Tony makes a mental note to send one of the Roombas to clean it up. Three floors down to the PT and med floor, and the trail of feathers is growing – just what the hell is going on here?
Tony pushes the doors open to the main medical bay, snarking before they’re open all the way. “Barton, I swear if you've smuggled some flea-bitten turkey into the Tower with intent to reenact the first Thanksgiving, portraying yourself as the mystical blonde haired blue-eyed native who saves us poor Pilgrims from starvation, I will make sure R&D has nothing but seventy-pound draw recurve bows for you to use.”
He stops and stares for a near record breaking four seconds before commenting on the sight before him.
“I realize that you two are together and all, have a whole litter of kittens and what not, which clearly indicates a healthy and active sex life but is it really necessary to role play your avian fantasies in the middle of public spaces? ”
Clint turns to look at him startled from where he's finishing gluing fake wings onto Phil's shirtless back; that's when Tony notices the psuedo tortoise shell colored wings are twitching and rustling under Clint's hands, a small pile of feathers gathering on the exam table behind Coulson.
Tony's head cocks to the side, mind working at about a teraflop.”I'm not the last to know again, am I?” he says, and Coulson looks over his shoulder sighing, and the small Cupid-esque wings on his back droop slightly.
“No Stark. You're actually the first outside of Fury, and I would appreciate it if you would keep it that way,” Coulson says. Peering over his shoulder he tugs gently at a feather that is bent up at an odd angle, carefully sliding it free and dropping it to the bed. Clint's hands are stroking over the wings, pausing here and there to work free loose ones.
“Coulson.... are you molting all over the Avengers tower?”
“No. I'm molting in the middle of the medical bay,” he replies, voice almost bored sounding it's so placid, as if this is something one just does on a regular basis.
“If you start roosting in the garage and crapping all over my cars, I will personally incinerate your file cabinets,” Tony says, and turns on his heel, walking out of the room muttering about zoomorphic personifications.
Clint snickers, carefully grooming out the old feathers and occasionally placing kisses on the back of husband's neck. “Think we should tell him about Natasha's tail?”
Coulson laughed quietly at that. “No, let him find out on his own.”