7328/Excellent Use of My Time

Excellent Use of My Time
Date of Scene:	25 April 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Poor Stephen, having to put up with Felicia and her card tricks! -- and bad luck to boot! Or is it all bad...?
Cast of Characters:	Black Cat, Doctor Strange

---

Black Cat has posed:
The sound of a key in the front doors to the Sanctum means that the Black Cat has arrived. It's nearing the evening and outside, the toilers of the day shifts are arriving home. She steps in and closes the door behind her quietly. Her booted steps are quiet despite the height of the wedge heel, black in color to match the leather purse slung over her shoulder and the black newsboys hat settled atop her mane of platinum-blonde hair. Her pants are skin-tight jeans in khaki, almost equestrian riding pants by look, and her white blouse flows beneath the cropped brown jacket -- of course the neckline is anything but chaste. At her neck, the aurora borealis stones for a flickering of brilliant color.

"Copperfiiiiieeelllld...?" Felicia calls out when she's reached the center of the foyer, before the grand staircase. She pauses and looks around, wearing a small red-lipped smile. "Come on out, you tricksy thing, I've got something to show you!" By the twinkle in her voice, she's quite proud of it too.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    The front door opens behind Felicia and in walks Stephen, wearing a single turtleneck sweater left untucked over his black slacks and brown leather shoes. The doctor is holding a couple of sacks of fresh produce as well as a half gallon of milk in his left hand. The wizard looks up from the steps and lifts his foot behind himself to hook onto the door and with a swish of his ankle the door is closed behind him.

    Strange steps into the large foyer and spots Felicia as she finishes her spin. "Looking for someone in particular or are you practicing your twirls?" Stephen teases with a light hearted smile that he rarely ever displays.

Black Cat has posed:
As precisely as a trained dancer, Felicia finishes her pirouette on her toes to face Stephen as he speaks. Her grin is bright as her jade-green eyes behind their darkly-lined lashes. For once, her pupils are the normal human-round rather than the previously long-standing ovaloid of feline persuasion. Her heels resound softly on the wood as she walks over, looking from his groceries to his face again.

"Look at you, being all domestic! I almost thought you might snap your fingers and presto-chango, a galloon of milk on your counter!" She mimics the action in a dramatic flair, posing almost as Vanna White before clicking her fingers. "Here, let me grab a bag," the cat-burglar then adds, reaching out to take one unless otherwise stopped.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen doesn't stop Felicia from helping. "I'm a pretty normal man Felicia, just because I can summon milk doesn't mean that's the correct thing to do." Stephen says and gives up a secret he's been keeping from Felicia, fooled by the benign nature of the conversation, "Magic always has a cost Felicia. Why pay it when I can walk outside and get my own food simply." Strange explains with a smirk as he starts to walk towards the kitchen.

    The chai color sweater plays with the silver streaks in his hair well as well as his greyish eyes that don't shy away from Felicia's greens. "What brings you here this time?" Stephen asks as he sets the bags on the countertop.

Black Cat has posed:
She ends up with two bags and follows along companionably beside him to the kitchen, allowing him to go first through the door. "Seems unfair to me, the whole cost business, but...I guess if that's how things go, then it keeps people from getting too crazy." Felicia wrinkles her nose thoughtfully and then shrugs, setting down her two brown paper bags.

Then, spinning on her toes in place to face him, she claps her hands together and grins at the Sorcerer impishly. "Something to show you, Copperfield. I think you might laugh. Or roll your eyes, I don't know, I'm not psychic." She then sets aside her bag and begins to rifle through it. She must go into it up to her elbow and at one point, looks off to one side in squinted concentration as she feels around for something within it. Then, finding it, she makes a soft squee of delight. Her hand whips out and behind her back in a blur, hiding what it is. "Proimise to play along?" There's a little pout of her lower lip and tuck of chin to flutter eyelashes shamelessly at Stephen. The slight tip of her newboy hat ups the charm another level yet.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Felicia... I don't make promises, I'm not a middle school boy." Stephen replies but he tries his best to ignore Felicia but she has that wile about her, that cunning. He sneaks a peek in her direction and his eyes linger on the playful woman. He tries to keep working on taking the produce out of the plastic sack but he has to stop and he pushes the bell peppers away from his hands.

    "Okay, I give up, I promise I'll play along." Strange says with a sigh as he turns and leans against the counter, his arms crossing before his chest and he waits for her to play her game.

Black Cat has posed:
"Ooh, you're a push-over, Copperfield," teases the cat-burglar as she steps closer to him, leading with a graceful little dip of her body and then straightening into a comfortable stand before him. "Alright, so... I had some free time and I thought I might work on my dexterity, right? Fingers and all. I can't be knocking over museum laser pointers and setting off alarms and all, that's in bad taste for someone like me." A spread of one hand's fingers overtop her collarbones brings focus to the necklace and, of course, her assets. Such assets. "Sooo..."

Out from behind her back, she then reveals a spread of playing cards! Thumbing them wide in one hand, she gives Stephen an excited, lip-bitten look. "Okay, pick one! Oh, wait-wait, pick one and look at it and //don't tell or show me.//" The blonde beams.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen's words get lodged in his throat at the sultry show from Felicia as she approaches him and he has to close his eyes and look away for a moment before he looks back at the blonde. "No, don't set off alarms. That would be bad for both of us." Stephen is able to get out before he's lifting a hand to draw a card from the deck Felicia has fanned before himself.

    "Sleight of hand isn't something that you should be good at, but the principles-" Stephen shuts himself up as he holds the card to his chest, then lifts it up to see it and makes sure only he can see it before lowering it back down to his chest. "Okay, now what?"

Black Cat has posed:
"Okay, so..." Biting her lip fetchingly again, Felicia closes up the fan of cards and then splits them. She holds the two piles above one another vertically and nods to the bottom stack. "Put if face-down on there so I can't see it and I'll shuffle the cards. I bet I can figure out which card is yours because guess what?"

She waits a beat, looking all too smug. "I, as you might not guess, am magical too." Stephen gets a show-woman's wink to boot.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen places his card back down onto the pile and then crosses his arms again, a thought crosses his mind and causes the smirk on his face to grow a bit more devious but he doesn't. He looks back to the bell peppers and then back to the woman who's fragrance has yet to leave his mind since their initial meeting. "I hope you liked your plants. I took care of them while you napped the other day. I assume you were mad at me for letting you sleep so long." Stephen says, trying to apologize and hint that he wants a 'thank you' from the other day while waiting for the thief to show off her magical powers.

Black Cat has posed:
"Nah. I mean, I was at first, yes," the blonde amends as she shuffles the cards rather fluently. A dealer's arc breaks between her fingers in a rapid blurring of cards and then she flicks them between two hands before doing a far less refined clump-shuffling, never dropping those grey eyes of his. "But I realized that I did need a nap after all that mess."

Her grin loses some of its slyness and instead, eclipses to something far more fond. "You're the best, Copperfield. Stephen." Oh man, the actual name. "I'd be stuck without you. Thanks." Her cheeks rise in the big close-lipped smile. Clearing her throat, she looks down in order to spread the cards face-down before herself in one hand.

"I did like the flowers, yes, especially the lily! The colors are gorgeous. You're the bee's knees." A quick flash of a grin and then, nibbling on the inside of her cheek, she frowns thoughtfully down at the cards. "You know what...it's funny." Her eyes rise to meet his.

"Your card isn't in here."

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "That's not funny." Stephen reports flatly, looking back to Felicia's eyes and giving her a mock frown. "I liked that card. It's easily in my top 50 favorite cards." Strange notes, at his own brand of dumb humor.

    Stephen uncrosses his arms by lifting one up to tap against the side of his lips, his index finger held up straight catches his cheek. "How do you know my card isn't there? Do you have those marked cards? have you been cheating this whole time?"

Black Cat has posed:
The cat-burglar apparently can't keep the curling smile from appearing on her face again.

"Me? Cheat? Copperfield." As Felicia closes up the collection of cards as a Southern belle might collapse a fan, she grins coyly at him. "You malign a good girl's name with things like that. See, I figured..."

Without dropping his eyes, she dips her fingers into the scoop of her blouse and pulls out another playing card slowly. A flip of it in her hand shows the Ace of Spades from another deck, and pressed within the white space in the card face's corner, a lip-print in her reddest lip-stick.

"...this is your card?" Her voice is so light and innocent, it might rest atop a daisy in a field with no more weight than a blue-winged butterfly.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen's eyes widen as he watches her hand go into her own shirt and then pulls out the totally wrong card but there has never been a more right card in Stephen's life. "Felicia." He says almost unaware that he was even speaking as his hand slowly lifts up to take the card, fingers touching briefly as he takes it and he looks closer before he pulls it to his own face and where her lipstick was placed in preparation for the trick he kisses the card.

    Stephen lacks the words, completely in this moment as he looks to her and things of only reaching out to Felicia and yet he can't move, his limbs are petrified with fear from past experiences and new and unforseen possibilities. This is the unkown Stephen has grown to fear the most. This is his heaven and hell.

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia's grin melts away into bemused confusion at his initial reaction -- the kiss of the card itself has her going wide-eyed and looking from it to his face, her mouth hanging slightly open. Her throat bobbles in a swallow as heat suffuses her cheeks.

"Yes...Stephen? Did I do something wrong?" she asks quietly, not looking away from him as she sets the pile of cards aside and starts looking guilty. "I thought it was...a cute trick, y'know? Because I'm not magical at all, actually." A few quick steps into his space and her fingers rise to fix lapels that...aren't there because he's wearing a turtleneck. Instead, she twitchingly brushes at the shirt to make it lie flat on him. "Hee-hee, sorryyyy...!" Wide jade-green eyes look beseechingly up at him.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Nothing to be sorry for." Stephen whispers to the woman after she closes the gap and as she lifts her hand to his chest, he lowers his own hands to rest on her waist and slightly behind. His breath is short and labored, and he's got the faintest hints of perspiration at his temples. "You haven't done a single thing wrong Felicia." Strange whispers, with his foot taking a single step forward, erasing any distance between the two as his eyes gaze into hers, searching for ... something.

Black Cat has posed:
"Then, I...um..." The consonant falls into a close-lipped hum as Felicia continues holding his eyes. Man, they really aren't all grey up this close, as she's seen before in the past atop a roof in the New York City night. Nails curl into lightly-closed fists against his chest, dragging as they go.

"Thought taking your things was a pretty wrong idea...?" she offers up in the same soft tone of voice, still looking up at him, and a crooked grin curls her red-red lips. Not pretty 'bad' idea. Pretty 'wrong' idea. Grammar's hard when one's distracted by refined cologne and those fascinating eyes.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Felicia... I..." Stephen swallows his pride as he looks down into those verdant eyes with a hint of fear before he speaks again. "I desperately want to kiss you, the problem is I wont be able to stop once I start." Stephen says, spelling out his intentions with the blonde woman. She'd no doubt feel that tremor of fear coming through in his hands against her sides but he's fighting himself to calm at least a little to regain his motor functions.

Black Cat has posed:
A deeper pink appears through her cheeks. Standing within the hemming of his arms with hands resting at her waist, she doesn't seem to wish to move. Her hands remain at his chest, fingers still curled inwardly. Felicia's grin deepens and becomes, maybe shockingly, more shy rather than confident.

"Gosh, Copperfield, if..." Her tongue flickers over her lips as if they were dry. "...if that's what you want to do, I'm not stopping you. You've...you're a charmer too, and...and I guess I'm just realizing it now. And I mean non-magically charming, but you're charming that way too," she adds with a breathy, embarrassed laugh.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Suddenly we're a bunch of gun shy awkward people. Like middle schoolers at a school dance." Stephen says, before he takes in his breath, his chest rising against Felicia's hands and he slowly closes his eyes while moving in towards the stunning woman when-

    THUNK

    Stephen's hand pulls away from Felicia's side as he takes a step back and lifts his palm towards his forehead and he grimaces in shock more than pain. "What--- why was that cabinet open?" Stephen asks no one as he lifts his free hand to shut the cabinet door closed, a small welt starting to form above his eyebrow already. Must have snagged the corner.

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia's dark lashes flutter shut as she finds herself leaning in as well, ever so ready for the culmination of a recent realization in attraction towards the Sorcerer, but alas -- luck is never in her favor.

She lets out a quiet 'eep!' at the sound of wood against head and dances a half-step away from Stephen even as he's putting his hand to his forehead. "Oh, geez, Stephen!" A frown of concern from her and she lifts up onto her toes to get a better look at the impact sight. "You might need some ice for that one."

Daringly, still pinked in her cheeks, she gently moves aside his hand and plants a light kiss on the reddened lump. "There. Now you can put some ice on it. It'll heal up faster, promise." A tiny X etched across her heart is accompanied by another shy little smile.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen moves his hand and blinks at Felicia as she kisses his forehead. Even as he protests, "There was nothing about that in any journal I read, or even wrote." The surgeon notes with a smirk as he stands back to his full height, no longer worried about kissing the girl. Maybe he takes the injury as a sign that he shouldn't be getting involved with anyone at the moment. He's simply too busy as the sorcerer supreme. Right?

    Stephen is asking himself this as he chews on his bottom lip and yet even in an internal processing state, Stephen can't help but stare at Felicia, the thief, standing in his kitchen, a woman who by all means he should never have even encountered is now one of the closest people in his life. There is no such thing as coincidence. He repeats it. There is no such thing as coincidence.

    Again. "There is no such thing as coincidence." He smiles towards Felicia, pulling her close to himself once more, confident and debonair and he lowers for the kiss.

Black Cat has posed:
"It might not be proven in a journal, but it works, okay?" Felicia pauses, looking up at the Sorcerer still. "...I mean, I think it does." She wrings her hands before her stomach as she looks to one side and by the small wince, she's berating herself internally. That cupboard...? It's souring her stomach. The cat-burglar deeply suspect it was her own doing, even if it was just a sleight of hand of her own aura.

Her jade-green eyes flicker back and meet his again. The consideration in them make her heart skip a beat. The rise of his hands and pull-in to his personal space makes her heart dance. Her palms splay on his chest once more as she blinks up at the Sorcerer. "Sure it's not luck...?" she manages to whisper before she too rises up to meet him, her lashes fluttering shut again.