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]

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."

[threelivesdown]

"Anything you survive, right?"

Selina can't help but think about what happened to Maggie and her husband. Her hands tighten around her coffee as she thinks about it, her stomach roiling, "Makes you stranger."

[starknaked]

"Have to live by it," he agreed with a nod. "In the end, what other options are there?" He suspected that Selina, more than many, could understand that.

He arched a brow at that. "Stranger, huh?"

[threelivesdown]

"At home it is most certainly stranger. It might make you stronger, it might break you but one thing true about Gotham is that life there makes you stranger," she says with a sort of wistful expression on her face.

[starknaked]

“Why do you look as if you miss it, when that doesn’t sound like the best thing to have. Strange, given the sort of places many come from, doesn’t sound like the best of things,” he said with a direct look, curious.

[threelivesdown]

"There are people I miss, as much as it irks me to admit it," she says softly. Selina looks up at him with a faintly pained expression.

[starknaked]

That definitely made Tony tense up, looking away. Thinking of Pepper as he closed his eyes a moment. "Sorry. I know how that is. You shouldn't be upset to admit it though."

[threelivesdown]

"It isn't exactly a straightforward relationship. If you think I avoid emotional entanglements... I'm positively clingy in comparison," she says with a knowing expression.

[starknaked]

"So then what? Do you want to talk about it," he asked, arching a brow. "I can go with mockery and not sympathy if that makes it easier.

[threelivesdown]

"I don't know, do you want to hear about my dysfunctional relationship with another man? Or would you rather drink coffee and flirt? I'm okay with either of those options or maybe something else entirely," Selina says, faintly amused.

[starknaked]

Tony watched her seriously though silent for a long moment. "I think the question is, which of those do you need most?" For once he was being an actual good man. He might be sick.

[threelivesdown]

Tilting her head to the side, she looks at Tony in silence for a few moments. Her hat casts a shadow across her eyes as she does so, "I really don't know which I need. Don't take this the wrong way but I don't think I'm to the spilling my heart out phase of trust yet."

It takes time for her to open up to people but that she's even /telling/ him that is something.

[starknaked]

Tony chuckled actually at her words, nodding. "I can understand that. I think for some they just never get to that point. So then... drinking coffee and flirting," he asked, lifting his glass as if in toast.

[threelivesdown]

"I think I can handle that. It doesn't seem like it would be too strenuous, though, I've been wrong about that sort of thing before."

Selina lifts her own glass in return with a small smile. The extra waiter takes that as a sign to fill her cup before she can stop him. There is a faint look and she shakes her head, "I'd just gotten the balance of cream, sugar and coffee right, too."

[starknaked]

"You never know. Sometimes that whole coffee thing can get intense," he said, entirely deadpan as he took another sip, watching her as he did.

"Seems even waiters here are trained the same way," he noted, shaking his head. "I think they're paid extra for making us rolling our eyes and scurry to make things right again, or speak without embarrassing ourselves with our mouths full."

[threelivesdown]

"That it can. I have had some impressive coffee dates," she says with a tone as though she's remembering something very specific. Reaching out, she adds cream and sugar to her mug before stirring it carefully.

"Oh, if they wanted to embarrass us, I"m sure they could come up with something better than that."

[starknaked]

Settling into the chair, comfortable and letting this be as much as life had been. A coffee meeting at an outdoor café. It was almost like life had been. Except that he would go home to a huge tower and no Pepper.

“Not that they could, but they will. Though I’m speaking actual waiters and not just aliens and their not real people.” He still wanted to get into one, find out if they were flesh and blood or what, but if they were, what did that make him?

[threelivesdown]

Leaning back, Selina crosses her legs carefully looking thoughtfully at Tony, "Well, waiting is a hard job. Even here it has to be extra thankless. Not that the Extras seem to notice rudeness for more than a few seconds."

[starknaked]

"I don't think they notice anything. I admit, I'm tempted to explore, find out just what lays beneath the skin. I wish I had an x-ray machine. I want to see what there is, are they even human?"

He glanced at them, frowning. "And if they are, what kind of brainwashing has them so clueless?"

[threelivesdown]

"Very much a scientist, aren't you?"

Selina seems amused as she holds her mug closer, welcoming the warmth of the new coffee, even if it did throw off the taste balance.

[starknaked]

“Always the scientist, mad or otherwise. I never understood those that accepted without wanting answers.” He shrugged, not at all bothered by the fact he was defined often by his mind and his genius. “You’re not curious what they actually are? What if they’re aliens?”

[threelivesdown]

"Sometimes. I don't know if it entirely matters, though, and that's the part that gets me. I've met aliens, so that isn't all that unique for me. And, well, if I start to think about this place for too long I just get really pissed off."

[starknaked]

“So you would rather bury your head in the sand,” he asked, arching a brow. It wasn’t something he had thought of her, if he was honest, though he supposed he had put little thought beyond that of thief and sensual beauty. “Finding answers may be the key to finding out why.”

[threelivesdown]

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I'm all for finding out answers but I think that some of them aren't as important as other or within my ability to discover. I'm not a scientist and I'm certainly not a kidnapper." Selina shrugs, "I guess you could offer compensation to Extras for x-rays or something?"

[starknaked]

"Is it kidnapping if they're not human?" So asked the man with enough gray areas to fill a whole psychology book on their own.

He made a face at that. "I'm already short on funds as it is. No hiring anyone for anything until I figure out a job."