06 [Location: Central | Open] I am not yours....

[threelivesdown]

Selina Kyle has a new hat.

She's sitting outside of a cafe sipping at a cup of coffee. Wrapped up inside a shawl, she's warding off the brisk chill of the day. It is trying to creep up into her bones, even with the sun shining down on her. Keeping her hands wrapped around the cup, she watches all of the people, or 'people', if you will, walking by.

This place is strange and she doesn't entirely know what she thinks of it.

Comments

[starknaked]

Things were coming along in the Tower. He had things in place, power back up and going, and a lot done in the short time he'd been there.

And he was quickly learning if he didn't figure out alternative ways to get items and supplies he needed, he was going to be starving by the end of the month.

So it was that Tony was out and about, heading to explore areas that seemed to have less of the real people here, and see what he might acquire without too much trouble.

Pausing when he sees someone with a bracelet, his eyes seemingly going there first now and then up to the face. A face he knew.

Changing course, he moved to drop down into the seat across from her.

"Don't you look charming."

[threelivesdown]

"I should hope I look at least that. You look ... harried," Selina says softly before she takes another sip of her coffee. Leaning back, she tilts her head, throwing shade across her face.

[starknaked]

He chuckled, ordering a coffee without a single look at the extra that came to ask. He was learning to dismiss them in a way he never did his robots.

"Been working on the Tower, and trying to do it without starving."

[threelivesdown]

"So not a lot of buying materials, then."

Selina chuckles faintly, as she adds, "At least you're keeping busy, though. I think I might actually find a way to die of boredom.

[starknaked]

"Exactly. Wont' be the first time I built things from scraps," he pointed out, tapping his chest.

"What a shame, and a disappointment. I would put you to work but I suspect you'd find a way to steal the Tower."

[threelivesdown]

"You know, I still don't exactly know what that thing in your chest, exactly," she says with a small smile. The expression speaks of some sort of secret knowledge - whether she has any or not.

"I don't think I could steal your Tower. Even if I could, I'd leave it where it is."

[starknaked]

He was quiet, considering that before tucking his shirt down to reveal the top. "For someone that's been so intimate with it, surprised you haven't asked," he teased. "Basically it's keeping me alive," he admitted. "And I built it in a cave with a box of scraps." He shrugged, despite how proud he was of it.

"I wouldn't put it past you, but thank you."

[threelivesdown]

"There were other concerns at hand," Selina says with a quirk of her lips before taking another sip from her mug.

"So, it is like a pace maker? It seems a bit more than that, even if you did build it in a cave."

[starknaked]

Oh but that got her a look. "It's a lot more than that. It keeps shrapnel from piercing my heart and leaving me dead. I was blown up with one of my own weapons. The shrapnel can't be removed, but it will migrate into my heart and kill me without this."

[threelivesdown]

Selina looks thoughtful at that, "I knew a guy a little like that at home. He isn't anywhere near so altruistic as you are."

She doubts Tony would appreciate a lot of the comparisons she could make to Victor. "So, you built yourself a new heart from scraps? While the shrapnel was trying to kill you?" Selina only does so much to hide that she's impressed.

[starknaked]

"Oh? What he do? Go on making the same weapons that nearly killed him," he asked, curious after how much he really had changed because of it.

"While being held prisoner by the men who were buying my weapons from my partner to take out or own troops. For a while I was lugging around a car battery to supply it and keep me alive, while being told I did what I was told or die."

[threelivesdown]

"He took it out on the world around him. He lost his wife and in his attempts to save her ... Well, it hasn't gone well for him since those efforts," Selina says pressing her lips together, triyng to figure out how to respond to that.

"... Well... I... That sounds like it sucked."

[starknaked]

Tony nodded. He knew the type, that was for certain. "I promise you, I handled things much better than he did then." And he planned to keep it that way.

Tony couldn't help but laugh. "Sucked more than you could imagine. I came out alive though."

[imperial_long]

Long offered the woman a slight, polite nod as he moved past on the sidewalk. The presence of bracelet marked her as one of the actual citizens, who he did not think he had met.

"Good afternoon," he said as he moved past, lingering a moment by the cafe's railing.

[threelivesdown]

"Hello there."

Looking at him, she frowns faintly as if trying to place him but she cannot do it, "I don't think we've met."

oh look who is the slowest ever at repping to her tags

[imperial_long]

"No, I don't believe we have either," Long said with a small shake of his head, a diffident smile.

"And I do try and keep somewhat abreast of the comings or goings, so permit me to rectify this-- Mayland Long, madam. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss...?"

You got back, though!

[threelivesdown]

"Kyle, Selina Kyle. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Long, I'm sure. And how long have you been trapped here?"

She takes a long sip from her coffee, before smiling at him over the rim.

[imperial_long]

He thinks about it, clasping his hands behind his back, regarding the sky overhead.

"One year, ten months, a handful of days," he ends up rounding. The exact time would probably seem a little too pedantic. "If our subjective opinions of time can be believed. And since I have only seen your name start appearing on the tables recently, you are a more recent addition to our gilded cage, I think. How are you liking it?"

The question is asked with no apparent sarcasm.

[threelivesdown]

"I'm not."

Selina puts her cup of coffee down on the table, "I don't like cages, I don't like prisons and pretty ones make me itch since it tells me something is being hidden."

A small lift of one shoulder, "Not that I can seemingly do much about that."

[imperial_long]

Long's answering smile is not quite sympathetic-- close, but a little too wry, too self-deprecating.

"No way that we have yet discovered, no," he says in commiseration.

"But I wouldn't take it too much to heart. Everything's transitory eventually, Miss Kyle."

[threelivesdown]

"I'm afraid I don't have that long of a view," Selina says tilting her head toward him. "Would you like to sit down and join me?"

[imperial_long]

"You are young," Long said in mild response, as if stating that the sky were blue; no actual judgment to his tone.

"That is very kind of you. If their tea is tolerable than I would be delighted," he murmured with a little bow before studying the low railing that separated the cafe seating from the sidewalk itself.

He shrugged to himself, then climbed over with no fuss, an incongruous sight in his business suit.

[threelivesdown]

There is... something about him that is comforting, though it isn't entirely familiar. The pragmatism is something that she knows, though, having seen it in others. "I haven't tried their tea and I'm not sure I would be a good judge of it. You'll have to let me know. Their coffee is ... well, better than I would have expected."

[imperial_long]

Long smiled, as if something privately amused him for a moment, but he shared the joke once seated.

"It used to be worse," he says with a note of deprecating semi-apology, as if the poorness of the food and drink were something he were personally responsible for although of course that is not the case.

"When I arrived it was extremely poor. Everything had very little flavor, or odd aftertastes, or.... I believe they have been making attempts to improve, which is something."

Long gestures with one hand for the Extra waiter. He's long since given up being discomfited by them.

[threelivesdown]

"Interesting."

Selina seems to take that piece of information and turn it over in her head a few times before continuing the conversation. "So, they're trying to improve things. This is a strange, strange place."