alsohawkeye | ataraxion inbox

Hard to say, I'm kind of enjoying it so far.

Cute.

You'd better watch yourself, or I'm not going to feel like being very nice to you this time.

Oh no, how will I manage this crippling fear??

I'll be specific: I'm going to break your nose, and then I'm going to rip out some of your pretty pretty hair and stuff it down your throat. Are you done trying to talk shit yet, Katie, because I'm done having my time wasted.

Same gym.

Ten minutes.

Eight minutes later, her nose nearly as good as new, Johanna strides into the gym with one axe in hand. She doesn't intend to use it on Kate, but she isn't thrilled with the idea of walking without it. Rather than think of that as some codependent weakness, she focuses instead on how good the weapon feels in her hand, solid and familiar. If she thought on a more spiritual bullshit-y plane, maybe she'd call it a talisman or a touchstone or something--but probably not, because fuck that kind of thinking. An axe is one thing: a weapon. Calling it anything else is dressing up something bloody and utilitarian.

No matter what she'd transparently claimed to Kate, Johanna is ready for round two. Her boredom is starting to make her feel cagey. There was a dog in District 7, a stray that lived behind Factory 23. Half dead from mange and madness, it had started to bite at itself, chewing first its own tail and then its hindquarters, leaving behind sores that oozed pus and blood. Trotting down the street, the dog would stop, suddenly, and then twist around with a snarl to begin gnawing at some new strip of flesh.

That's what Johanna fucking feels like: that mad dog. She hates feeling that way. The hallways have an echo to them like water dripping in a cave, falling into some secret black pool. She hates that too.

In the gym, she throws her axe on the floor and stretches her arms over her head, draws one arm across her chest and pops her shoulder, looking around to see if she's beat Kate here or not.

She has, but not by much. Kate arrives a moment later, soon enough that it's a wonder they didn't end up awkwardly riding the lift together. Thanks, Tranquility, for that small mercy.

She wouldn't go quite so far as mad dog but there's something in that Kate could sympathize with. More like a kicked dog, maybe, one that's been teased and taunted and left for dead and is ready to start lashing out. It's not a feeling she's proud of; she'd gotten past the whole 'only one on the team without powers' thing years ago, come to terms with the knowledge that no matter how hard she trained she'd never be invulnerable or a sorcerer or able to vibrate matter until it exploded. It hadn't mattered. She'd been good enough to make sure it didn't.

But Mitchell threw that back in her face, reminded her how vulnerable she was, how vulnerable she'd always be no matter what she did. And then Johanna, talking about ripping her hair out like he'd almost done. Fuck her. Fuck him. Fuck everyone who thought they could push Kate Bishop around.

She stalks into the gym, minus the swagger she'd left with when Johanna saw her last. In its place is a cold, furious confidence. She tosses her bag aside, strips out of shoes and t-shirt, and steps up onto the mat. With her hair up and no sleeves the new scars are angry pink masses, impossible to miss. "Let's go," is all she says.

Edited (unnecessary edits yay) 2014-08-20 02:25 (UTC)

She glances over at Kate's entrance--good--and she starts stretching out her arms, bending her right elbow over her head and pulling it to the left,and then switching sides--

As she stretches, she takes the measure of her opponent, and that measure is: not good. Kate looks a little like hell--even more like hell when she strips off some more of her clothes, bears the bright pink marks torn into her flesh. Johanna isn't one for staring, except when she chooses to--but her gaze lingers a moment on those marks before she turns away, pulls her arm across her chest.

She's not quite done stretching out when Kate calls the start, though her slowness is really quite deliberate. Instead, Johanna turns a slow glance back toward her, eyebrows raised a little.

"You look like shit," she observes, coolly, as she stretches her left arm across her chest.

"You look like you're wasting time," is Kate's retort. She shakes her arms out, bouncing a couple times on the balls of her feet, neck rolling. She's tense, strung too tight for good form and struggling to loosen up. Bending for her toes hides when she closes her eyes for a second, letting lungs fill and empty on a slow count, once, twice, a third time, reining herself back in.

With some patience recovered she doesn't hurry Johanna again, knowing that's not likely to get her anything but more delays. She'll just stretch and wait in silence, eyeing the tear in her arm, feeling the muscle pull tentatively beneath it, newly healed. She's got to stop letting Johanna goad her into a fight when she has such obvious weak spots.

"Maybe." She gives Kate a tight little grin--one last stretch of her arms over her head, fingers laced together--and then she lets them drop, lightly, raises her hands to her hair to scratch her fingers against her scalp, run her fingers through her hair. This is deliberate preening, showing off a bit of clean unmarked neck. "But at least I don't look like shit."

She's not about to ask what happened, and she won't give Kate anything like pity or something that could be misconstrued as interest. Instead, she tugs her too-big t-shirt over her head and tosses it aside, stripped down now to just the tight black pants from the Arena and a sports bra. With another grin, she holds out one hand to Kate, like she's asking her to dance.

"Well?"

Kate's smile is closed lipped but somehow still seems to suggest teeth. "Yet." Give her a few minutes, she'll have Johanna looking like shit in no time.

Johanna might like what pity would get her, but it's about the same as what she's going to get anyway. Kate fakes like she's going for the handshake, stepping into it, but she steps too far, hooking a foot around Johanna's to try to put her down on her back. She doesn't really expect it to work, it's not like Johanna is an idiot who isn't going to be prepared for a sneak attack here. But maybe she'll fall for the footwork, which is actually designed to conceal Kate's real attack, a right hook strong enough to turn heads and shatter glass jaws. It's less fancy than a double feint sounds and lightning-fast, each step executed with a vicious precision.

The "handshake" was never going to be anything besides a feint anyways--so when Kate springs that little double cross on her, Johanna can't feel anything other than grim approval. She doesn't fall for the hook of Kate's foot, thank you--she's not that stupid--but she catches wind of the punch just a second too late. The side-step she'd had to do to avoid getting slammed to the mat--that puts her right in range for the punch, and she's hard-pressed to twist and avoid its real force.

Her dodge is half-assed, and Kate's punch lands--not quite as hard as it might have--and good, because she'd hate to have to give Kate any more credit for facial injuries. It's enough to make her stumble, anyways, but she recovers enough to grab for Kate's arm as she does, the arm that threw the punch, banking on Kate's momentum being too much. If she can twist her arm behind her back, get her in an arm bar and get her on the floor--

It's less than Kate hoped for but better than nothing, the contact sending a jolt up her arm, pain blooming in her knuckles. For a half-second she savors it, and then Johanna has her arm, using her follow-through against her.

She's pulled off-balance, her arm caught and turned behind her. She lashes back, with the back of head and hand, trying to throw them into Johanna's face. They're probably easily dodged, but at least delay getting her on the ground. She keeps her feet for another moment, trying to stop an insole or drive a heel into shin. While trying to free her arm, of course, but it's difficult without wrenching it, and she's a little wary of tearing up her elbow again so soon.

Johanna dodges that heave back--after all, Katniss has done such a good job fixing her nose, it would be a shame to see that work undone--but that means that she loses a bit of her force, too, and Kate--however thrown-off she is by that twisted arm--is too good to let that opportunity slip by. If she wasn't good, she'd be boring.

It's the heel-to-shin that catches, and Johanna stumbles back a step, still with her grip on Kate's arm. Fuck that, she's not going down like that, not so easy, and she rocks herself forward, bringing her other forearm flat against Kate's back and wrenching that grip on her arm, trying to drive her forward and get her on her knees.

Kate's knee buckles almost automatically when her arm is twisted further, and she goes with the instinct, one foot and a knee planted on the mat. It's not quite as deliberate as it sounds, pain and reflex largely making the choice for her. But continuing with the momentum, that's a choice, and reaching back with her free hand to grab at Johanna's elbow and pull her along. She'd like to throw her over, but there isn't really enough force for that and it's not a move she can manage on her own strength alone.

She's not totally sure what her move is here, essentially dragging Johanna off her feet but onto Kate's own back, she just knows she's rather have them on equally unstable footing, and maybe if she then pushes up of that one foot and lowers her head Johanna will topple over her.

It's a good move, enough that it throws Johanna off-balance. The pull makes her arm twist, painfully, and she's got to loosen her grip on Kate to lessen that pressure--and that means she's all the more vulnerable for a throw. Not over her head--she's not quite done--but it's enough that she can't get away, and when Kate heaves her, she tries to move away--

But all that means is she doesn't go tumbling over Kate's head. The force of her push up knocks Johanna off of her, rolls her off of Kate's shoulder and on to the mat--not as hard as a good throw would have landed her, but hard enough. Quickly, Johanna tries to regroup--twists to try and hook her leg around Kate's throat, right in the crook of her knee, to knock her back onto the mat, too--

The leg around her throat wasn't what Kate was expecting and she's caught for a moment, long enough to cut off her air and knock her onto her back before she pulls free, punching Johanna hard in the thigh, knuckles angled to dig in and bruise.

She scrambles to get her bearings again and then twists to re-engage, putting herself immediately into danger again, coming from an angle and aiming to grapple a hold on Johanna's legs. She's clearly working for a leg bar, trying to pull the limb straight, foot up to her ear while her own legs push Johanna's body the other way, threatening to hyperextend the knee if she can pull it off. If she can't, well. More strangling it is.

Edited (phone typos) 2014-08-22 00:58 (UTC)

Johanna makes an angry noise at the punch, not as an exclamation of pain--though it helps to give voice to it, however briefly; it frees her from thinking about that brief sharp hurt. She does not have time for pain, she's got to think, and think fast.

Kate's grip is pretty good, and the tug starts immediately. Johanna knows what she's going for, and with another angry noise, she shoves herself sideways, rolls her hips and knee up toward the ceiling. One hand grabs for Kate's foot, shoves it down toward the mat--and with her other arm, she hooks around Kate's top leg, as she heaves herself up to a sitting position. The movement puts a brief strain on her leg, but Johanna sets her teeth against it. She's got Kate twisted in such a way that she'll have to release the leg, she'll have to let go, if only to ease the strain on her own legs, one of her feet trapped against the floor, the other leg still hooked in the crook of Johanna's elbow--and in case that strain isn't enough, Johanna shoves her hip against Kate's foot, pinning it to the floor and increasing the distance between that leg and the one she's holding trapped. It's like she's a very hands-on gymnastics instructor, trying to get Kate to do some weird version of the splits--except with more pain.

Kate's rolled up by Johanna's shift upwards, on her back and legs trapped. She releases Johanna's leg, left with no other decent options to salvage the hold and no leverage to put more than token pressure on the joint. She probably ought to scramble away, here. Instead she kicks out in the opposite direction, a little roll gaining her some brief momentum, enough (along with gravity) to let her pop her hips up and try to catch her knees around Johanna's neck. She's sort of upside-down and pale enough - naturally and especially of late - that even a brief moment of it has her going red, the flush across her cheeks from exertion suffusing face and ears and down her chest.

It's not exactly a high-percentage maneuver, but what the hell. If it works at all she can tug the other girl's head down to her torso and either try to cut off air by smothering her against sweaty skin or maybe rearrange her nose all over again. That it's pulling Johanna on top of herself is maybe not the best idea, but she's hoping a tight enough grip around the other girl's throat will make up for the disadvantages of her position.

Edited (I'm just fussing ignore this) 2014-08-25 05:01 (UTC)

For someone whose strength was once her wrestling ability and her fearlessness with the required moves, Johanna has developed an intense hatred of being touched. It isn't always an issue, but when it is an issue, it's a feeling she can't ignore, as palpable as something crawling over her skin. She feels a tingle of it when Kate locks her knees around her neck. Too close, a ratchet toward an anxiety that borders on a panic--but she suppresses it for now, forces herself to work past it with her teeth gritted.

Because while Kate's maneuver lacks some measure of strength, it's enough, at least, to pull Johanna forward, to make breathing a little difficult. She twists to grip at Kate's legs--not with the intent of pulling them apart, but digging in, like she's holding on to her--in part to ground herself, and in part a gesture of false confidence, confidence that she does not really feel--and she grins, all teeth, what little inhalation she can manage sluicing through before she lets it out, unsteady--

"What now, Katie?" It comes out a little choked, but she's still breathing. You'll have to do better than that is how she might follow it up, if she thought she could spare the breath. She probably can't, but she doesn't let on. Instead, she lets her grin say that for her.

Kate has always preferred fighting from her feet to wrestling. It's more detached, more clinical, and frankly more satisfying. Taking someone down with a few quick punches or a well-placed kick, fighting a whole crowd, ducking and jabbing. It's graceful and brutal and impressive to watch. (Not that she gets to watch herself, but it feels like it is. It is when other people do it and she's as good as they are, so. Safe to assume she too looks like a badass.)

Wrestling is none of those things. It's messy and confusing and sweaty and instinctual. It's not at all what she prefers but somehow right now it feels right. It gets her out of her own head in a way nothing else has lately, too demanding to let her brain get away with its usual constant noise. It's too visceral, a thousand pieces of sensory input from the mat sticking between her shoulder blades to Johanna's pulse against her knee, her breath on her chest, sweat collecting at her sternum, the fingers digging into her legs, the pounding of blood through the new scar tissue at her throat and arm.

What now? "Now I choke you out and win," she replies through her teeth. Her voice is thickened by the fact that it's not actually very easy to breathe from her position either, but it's missing the raw-nerved fury she came in with, which has faded as they've gone on, as she's gotten more invested, more distracted. She locks her ankles and pulls until they're basically both nose to navel, which is absurd and far from comfortable, but if she can just keep that hold on Johanna's throat, she can win. She could use a win.

She struggles to breathe out, a short, sharp sound--a laugh, really--because if there's one thing she both hates and appreciates, it's balls. Kate has proved herself. It has not endeared her to Johanna, necessarily; there's nothing that can endear anyone. But she appreciates it, which counts for a hell of a lot more.

All of that amusement is in her response. One word, bitten out: "No."

With a grunt of effort, Johanna digs her fingers in a little deeper--and uses that momentum to arch her back, raise her head as much as she possibly can. It isn't much, but it stops a little of the pressure on her throat, releases a bit of the dizzying feeling working against her. It also distances herself from Kate, warmth and damp sweat--and then she hoists her hips as high as she can, digs her knees in against the mat and pushes, her shoulders against the back of Kate's thighs, pushing up on her legs as she does. The movement jams her face against Kate's midsection for a moment, but she tries to arch her neck upwards again, alleviate the strain that puts on her neck once more. If she can get Kate to give first--and she probably can't--but the slim narrow chance is one she has to take.

"Yes," Kate replies, because that's how this is going to be. The laugh in Johanna's tone translates, and to her surprise she finds herself grinning. "And then you're gonna show me how to throw that axe. Business after pleasure, remember?" It's a tease and a taunt, shamelessly goading, throwing Johanna's words back in her face but with too much of a laugh suddenly in her throat to be mean, exactly. Ballsy is pretty spot on.

It's not an easy position to hold, as much as her bantering might suggest otherwise. Johanna pulling against it makes it easier in one way but harder in another, and Kate is forced to sacrifice a little of the clamp around her throat in exchange for just holding on at all. She's been using her arms for balance, out to each side by her hips, but reaches up now to throw them around Johanna's back and pull down against her upward pressure.

How exactly is Kate deciding which is which? Maybe this is pleasure because it's for fun--which it is, now, as deep as Johanna's competitive streak runs and as angry as she perpetually is, there is some level of fun to this. Sweaty body-to-body contact, is that your idea of fun?--but she doesn't have the breath with which to reply, for all that she's straining to keep herself unchoaked.

Only it gives her an idea. As Kate hauls her forward, it lets in a little more oxygen, it clears Johanna's head--and it shoves her face against Kate's stomach again, she doesn't have the time in which to twist away. But that suits her fine. The coupe de grâce, here: when Kate pulls her forward, when her face gets crushed against Kate, Johanna's fingertips push in on their grip, and she flat-out kisses Kate's stomach.

It's a little squashed, a little clumsy and crushed, but there's no mistaking it for what it is. Just for the hell of it, just to see how she'll react--but Johanna is pretty certain of how she'll react. And if she doesn't, well. Johanna isn't a graceful loser. But she'll make up for it. Just don't say she went out without a fight, whatever finishing move she used.

She's deciding which is which based on what Johanna said last time but she would call this fun, now. Not when she came in, but it's become fun at some point. Don't ask her why. (It might be the sweaty body-to-body contact.)

She does sort of a double-take at the kiss, a full-body startle Johanna can feel in the jump of the abs under her face and the brief loosening of the hold around her throat. "What the-- did you just kiss me?" Kate's voice can't quite decide if it's more shocked or laughing. It's leaning toward laughing, even as she's probably struggling to maintain a hold as Johanna takes advantage of her momentary lapse. "What the fuck!?"

There's no conscious decision involved in Kate leaning up and pressing her mouth to Johanna's abdomen, just some gut instinct that she has been one-upped and that can't be allowed to stand. Whatever advantage that gained she'll win back with an open-lipped kiss, necessarily a little rushed and awkward but yes that was tongue at her navel because Kate Bishop does not half-ass things even when they are really weird and stupid and poorly thought-out.

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throws brackets out the window

does not catch them

good

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tries to write fights that makes sense, fails??? lmk if you need clarifying this is hard

This one also makes no sense but if you Google there are pics? This is so hard

we're doing well CONFIDENCE be confident

i'm trying I'M TRYING except for how i'm now totally making shit up

well IT'S WORKING

WELL GOOD

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