Music and Matchsticks
( continued from here | @phencyclidinc )
He returned her curious look for several seconds, seeing who might deign to spill their secrets first—Well. That had been the plan when he boldly walked up to her and stole something from her, but once he got a look at her up close, he was reminded of what it was like to be in close proximity to her when she wore things so tight-fitting. His own suddenly felt similarly tight, annoyingly.
“I drove by and saw you,” He explained without having to be asked, if only because he didn’t want her to think he’d been following her. She was free to live her life and undertake whatever missions SHIELD might have for her as she pleased, of course.. even though part of him did want to shield her from SHIELD itself. They were not the friendliest of sorts to mutants and mutates, even if she believed Maria when she said otherwise.
His hand went to the small of her back, bringing her nearer so that conversation was not quite so difficult despite the sounds coming from everywhere all at once. She was dressed for the club, but he wasn’t—just a short-sleeved T-shirt and some jeans that had him sticking out from everyone else.. who actually happened to have a sense of fashion to go with their musculature, even if they were a few inches and several dozen pounds lighter.
“But you did not dress up for that.” Which was his way of asking without asking just why she was here dressed to attract someone’s attention, even if he was doing a good job of passively counteracting her clothing’s unsubtle implications of her measurements by simply standing next to her looking like a barrier best not tested. “Or this.” He twirled the comparatively-tiny matchstick around his thumb via index finger, glancing down at the object just to look back at her more openly inquisitive. He could have asked about the club itself, too, and whether she really enjoyed the scene—he wouldn’t know, beyond being sure it wasn’t his—but it was something to consider for the future. Which was why the pair of fingers at the small of her back began tracing small circles, at the consideration of future, hypothetical outings together, that weren’t her on a mission and him a tag-along.














