💐

Lucky ♤

" i don't know --- or care --- what the hell strava is, but if you're about to broadcast your location to the internet, you might wanna think twice, kermit. " she snatches joey up by the nape of his collar to yank him alongside her.

He watches Jessica kick in her second wall today. Scarily, attractively effective. When she leg presses at the gym, does the whole world just sorta crO—

QQQ

QQQ

UUU

UUUET!

FUCK!

They land in a dumpster plush—pustule-y, more like—with garbage bags: one and a half story fall. The smell is as loud as the drop. Green stink lines surf down the brick alley; rats skitter to catch a wave.

Joey looks back to their silhouettes imprinted in the wall like premature chalk outlines.

Something's off.

He leans into Jessica's space:

"Do my arms really look that small?"

Just like this line between cosplay and identity theft isn’t fine, Einstein. He’d plead the fifth, but this one, okay, it’s getting to him a little. He’s had a week, and he’s starting to think that ashwagandha thingy Peter 1 recommended to him is a scam.

Look, there’s only room for one (throuple of) Spider-Man. Emphasis on ‘-Man.’

Actually.

Her head tips.

and, ’ whoa, ‘ takes the head clean off the iron man digital art on the semi-wall intruding on bruce’s nook. with a limp to its architecture, the frame is now an achy-breaky rhomboid pen... du... luming. a smoking gun peephole. dum-e junior wheels in to bless the mess, and tony doesn’t bother anymore. watches dum-e’s single arm tunnel in through and out the warheadshot, then drop it. this is what pepper might’ve meant by a statement piece. is miss parfait trying to state something?

you know what?

’ you’re fine. it was overkill. ‘

he can count on one hand the number of people who’d have the balls to say that to him. she is an NDA, but she’s not like the other NDAs yet.

before she makes a dorian gray jab or he asks her to ask him to pull her finger, he situates on her periphery where she can feel more than see his largely HR-respectful feather adjustments to her elbow, gym-coach clinical by calibration, of which there’s no small amount necessary.

’ just mind your pressure, ‘ and angles and the whole shebang between her head and her toes. ’ here, ‘ he calls this one the romanoff.

A screen monitor swings perilously by its newly exposed wires like her mother’s tsking finger: sparks sizzle-spittle, decently dubbing that missing sound effect. Stephaine’s face origamis around the pleated scrunch of her nose as if to fold her emotions into a palatable presentation. Cringing. She is cringing. Crimping, the sophisticated would insist. Her body maintains its sturdy position. Resolute; her Iron Man arm stemmed out in front of her to avoid any additional, unintended emissions. She cannot contain the world’s tragedies, but she can dutifully contain her reaction to them—and, in her bespoke career, others’.

Her gaze swishes to his to apologize but pinballs between his eyes: when Tony’s cosmetologist arrives for his weekly root touch-up appointments, does Tony silently pierce them with his smoldering stare in lieu of a reference image because the color coordination between his irises and hair is astonishingly exact. That reflection in and of itself is inappropriate. Above all else, negligently off-task.

Her eyebrows steeple together. “I am so sorry.” For more than is presently visible.

Carnage like this is what ensues when formalities are dropped in pursuit of ephemeral frivolity. Actions must have intent. Reason¹. Tony doesn’t poke holes in her demeanor, he—Stephaine regards the digital desecration as the portent it is—demolishes it. She lowers her arm. She should not have entertained this. Her shoulders preen as she reverts to proper form; that is, reserved. This way—how might Tony put it?—the damages are mitigated.

You’re fine. It was overkill.

Good grief,

he’s funny.

His hovering guidance is acharacteristically civil. A stark departure from the rumored Stark (her stare pours into his—his crafty care pointedly refreshing—like a complimentary refill).

"Steady." An assurance and/or an admonition.

Jarvis assembly-lines in scrapped 3D prints via the overhead railings. One alights with a holographic target. Then another.

To the omniscient air: “Jarvis, I should think one is plenty, thank you.”

To Tony: "How do I shoot?"

Directly after this—though, she's already begun, her eyes roombaing the space—she'll assess (and redress) the scene for safety. Once home (the distance buffering Tony from easily refusing or refuting), she'll wire the estimated repair expenses to him.

_*_*_