[for Selina]

[daretodo]

There’s all of one reason I ever find myself on the beach, and that reason is Martha. I’m not a natural pet owner by any stretch of the imagination, but at some point, me and Martha fell into a kind of routine. She’s still dribbling water from an hour spent retrieving her favorite toy from the ocean, and I’m praying she’ll at least be somewhat dry by the time we get home. I’m trying to remember if I left the towels out in the living room when a sunbather catches my eye.

Except, as I realize when I get closer, she’s not just any sunbather. Even with the sunglasses hiding her eyes, I know that face.

“You!”

I was always taught it was rude to point, but I can’t help myself. Plus, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I figure it’s probably ruder to rob a man blind — even if all his money is fake and he, let’s face it, kind of maybe deserved it.

The fact of the matter remains that Irena the Robbin’ Russian is apparently a real, living person and not some designer island trick.

“You!” I say again, stuck on that one word. I snap my fingers and drop my arm. “Why, I oughta—“

Oughta what, Parker? Report her? For a crime you can’t even prove, because everything disappeared? For getting the best of Tony Stark for one night? (Which, come on, you maybe got a kick out of. Just a little.)

I let out a breath, feeling my shoulders sag. I press the heel of my hand to my forehead, then wave off my accusation with a deflated gesture.

“Ah, forget it.”

Comments

[purrloined]

If she's being honest, that is far from the first time she's been greeted in such a manner.

Selina looks up from her position in the sand, shrugging back to lean on her flat palms, arms straight, legs staying stretched out in front of her, knees tucked slightly together. Better leverage for going from a reclined position to a kicking someone in the face position, she's found, that way.

"Probably the right call," she offers with the slightest upward hitch of an eyebrow from behind the generously oversized sunglasses she'd found sitting around somewhere (they were unquestionably someone's- or had been. Now they were hers). He oughta exactly nothing, and he'd decided to ought he would have regretted it immensely.