alsohawkeye | ataraxion inbox

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.

The minor success is overshadowed just slightly by Kate's return volley, a kiss that is definitely unplanned but one which also includes a bit of tongue. That brief sensation, mixed with the grip of the hold--it's a little pleasure-and-pain thing, thrilling in its way--and Johanna grins even as Kate struggles to reclaim her hold. Raising the stakes a little, Katie?

"Let go." Kate's moment of distraction didn't earn Johanna her freedom, but it did earn her a bit of wiggle room, enough that she could get in a bit more respite from the choke hold, and, thus, a bit more air. The words come out strained, but not half as choked. "We'll call it a draw, Katie." Kiss for kiss and grip for grip. There's a lingering salty taste of sweat on her lips, and it's not all her own. This sure is an exciting fight.

Kate's laugh is strained, by effort and also the what the fuck did I just do?? that is dominating her brain for the moment. Because seriously, what the fuck? But weird as it is, whatever. She did it, it's done, Johanna started it anyway. Hawkeye does not get derailed by one weird kiss-attack. (Not this Hawkeye, anyway.)

So it's definitely a laugh, and it lingers in her tone. She licks her lips. "It's not a draw, I'm fucking beating you!" Just to prove it she tightens her grip again, or attempts to, legs clamping and fingers digging into Johanna's ribs where her arms are wrapped. But she's made her point, she thinks, (whatever that is) and if she keeps pushing either Johanna's going to bite her or just get too pissed to show her axe-throwing, so. She lets go, limbs dropping, stretching out on the mat as Johanna is freed.

Stars burst across Johanna's vision at the sudden tight grip of Kate's legs--and she gasps, before her breath is cut off. She can't help herself. A sudden lack of air will do that to you, your own fucking body betraying you.

But just as soon as the pressure's increased, it's gone again--and it's for the best that Kate lets up, because a kiss is easily followed by a bite, because if Johanna had gotten her head together she would, without question, have bitten Kate. Only Kate lets up, and Johanna twists away, instantly, flopping back onto the mat with a huge gulp of a breath. She lays there for a moment, boneless--but that's the kind of laxness that shows weakness, and weakness only ever gets you killed. Still a little dizzy, she plants her palms on the mat and shoves herself up.

"A draw," she repeats, for emphasis, her breathing still a little ragged. "Ready for business, now that pleasure's out of the way?"

She licks her top lip, just a little. Still a little salty, and it's not, by the way, as casual a move as it might seem. A bit too calculated for that. Pleasure indeed.

Edited (blah blah) 2014-08-26 19:36 (UTC)

Kate's sprawl across the mat is a casually artful splay of limbs but not actually as at ease as it seems. She hasn't forgotten what happened at the end of their last bout, and while Johanna's axe is further away this time she remains ready, one eye on her in case she makes a move for it again.

But she doesn't, so Kate regains her breath, wiping at sweat with a hand down the center line of her torso and a forearm across her brow. She smirks at 'a draw', clearly maintaining victory in her own mind, but doesn't dispute it aloud. "Sure," is an easier response. She looks up at Johanna as she rolls to her knees and gets to her feet, but it's readiness more than wariness, at this point. Her eye catches on that split second of tongue, perfectly timed as she straightens into a stand. "Whenever you're ready," she replies, gesturing across the gym toward the couple targets hung on a wall, distances measured out.

That she wets her lips as she turns away, teeth dragging across the lower, is entirely uncalculated, however it may look.

Edited (more fussing don't look at me) 2014-08-27 04:40 (UTC)

If you don't contest a draw, then the rules of the draw state: it's a damn draw. Johanna is satisfied with that, and satisfied with Kate catching even a glimpse of tongue. You don't stop playing a game with someone just because the fight portion of it is over, not if you're playing to win. If Kate knows the game--that one's more difficult to say.

But, axes. That's way more Johanna's style. She shifts to her feet and strides over to where she's left them, laying beside her t-shirt, heads gleaming in the light. Their handles fit easily against her palms--not the wood that she was used to, from childhood, but hard metal and plastic, manufactured somewhere for the Games. The thought is not a pleasant one, but axes are axes. If Johanna wanted reminders of childhood, she'd get a treeline tattooed on the inside of her eyelids, so she could see the forest whenever she managed to sleep.

As if to prove this to herself, she grips at both axes as she stands. Three seconds, to size up the targets as she approaches, gets a bit closer--and then Johanna shifts, abruptly, mid-step, sinks down into the proper stance as her fingers slide neatly down the shaft toward the bottom--brings the axe up in an arc, up from her knee, and sends it whirling through the air. Head over shaft, over head, over shaft, and then, thunk, the blade bites right into the center of one of the targets.

Pleased with herself, she turns to Kate, and holds out the spare axe. "It's not in the wrist. That's the first thing to remember. And you want them dull. They grip your target better when they're dull. More screaming." She wiggles the axe, enticingly.

A win is a win no matter what the loser calls it, says Kate. If they had a judge this wouldn't even be a question. Whatever, she doesn't need Johanna's approval!!

But axes. She's expecting the throw - she can see it coming in the way Johanna approaches, where her eyes go, the turn of shoulders and hips in the seconds before she takes that stance (and it's Johanna; it just seems likely). The telegraphing doesn't make it less impressive. As an archer and an expert athlete she appreciates that deadly aim and the obvious mastery. As a person with eyes, there's the grace and strength and it's just pretty damn cool. Axes.

She shakes out her arms as she steps up, wrapping a hand around the axe Johanna seems to be offering. She snorts softly at that advice, rolling her neck and shoulders, and turns to eye the target. She looks comfortable with the weapon in her hand, twirling it twice and re-setting her grip. She takes a step away from Johanna, steps up, and throws. It's not from the wrist, but it's also not...very good. For a first time, sure, it's great, but Kate's talked a pretty big game last time they met and now the axe thunks into the wall high above the target. She steps back with a frown.

Johanna's smirk ought to telegraph even more loudly than her intent had. There is zero attempt made to hide her expression, and she turns slowly from the target so she can look at Kate, her hands on her hips, mocking.

"Wow," she drawls. "And you told me this was your first time."

Truthfully, the throw isn't that bad, for a beginner. It probably helps that Kate is an archer, that she's got an understanding of aim and accuracy in a way that some nobody might be lacking--but like Johanna is going to say that. Encouragement might as well be a foreign thing to her. And like hell she's going to give archery any credit, for anything. Archery makes her think of Katniss, turns her smile a little wry. She'd said she'd teach Katniss something about axes, too. Will she be better, or worse, than Kate?

"You put it up there, you get to go and get it down. Bring it back and I'll show you all the things you did wrong." All, did you get that, Kate, because there are so many. Expectantly, Johanna folds her arms over her chest and stands back. "Go ahead."

Kate only turns for a second, long enough to take in the smirk and the hands on hips. She lifts her own hand as she focuses back on the target, middle finger raised at Johanna's mocking. (And she's totally better than Katniss.) In her head she's going through her best guess at what all she did wrong, visualizing what must have happened. And then realizing when Johanna mentions it that it stuck up there, since of course the gym wall is padded so things don't ricochet and kill people by accident.

It's way out of her reach, but she heads down the lane anyway without hesitation, still giving Johanna the finger over her shoulder for a few paces. When she reaches the target she first pulls Johanna's axe out of its center and chops it into the wall around hip height instead. A foot braced there gives her a boost, something to push off so she can jump and grab the one she threw, ripping it out of the wall and dropping to her feet. She considers leaving the one she didn't throw herself, but whatever. She swings them both in her hands as she returns.

It's been a while since she's found herself in a student sort of situation like this and part of her rankles at it but she shoves it down and shrugs at Johanna. "Show me, then."

The rude gesture only makes Johanna's smirk widen, pleased. Sometimes she likes and appreciates a little nastiness, in response to her nastiness. Sometimes she hates it. But her fight with Kate has put her in the former mood, rather than the latter, like they're in some sort of bad attitude club. She watches Kate cross to the target, watches the easy way that she climbs up and fetches the other axe--nice, and nice--and she keeps watching her, appreciatively, as she crosses back. It's a moment of observation that goes on just a bit too long, maybe, a study of every bit of Kate--but then Johanna shifts, abruptly, takes back both axes and drops one to the floor. Its blade bites in to the mat, with a muffled thunk, and it sticks there.

The other axe she takes in hand, an easy, loose grip. "Thumb here," she says, laying it flat against the handle. "Keep the head straight--turn it sideways and you won't have any control. And grip it like this, easy. Pretend like you're a nice polite girl, and you're shaking hands with someone you just met."

Kate is oblivious to the scrutiny, except maybe at the last second, catching some sense of movement just as Johanna looks away. She doesn't make anything of it, focused immediately on the axes. She watches, and lifts a brow. "You say that like I'm not a nice polite girl," she replies, too dryly for there to be any sense she's taken real offense. But she knows how to play the part -- if Johanna were the sort for shaking hands she'd know Kate's is practice-perfect. But she's not, and Kate isn't about to offer up that part of her life as additional fodder for mockery. Johanna needs no assistance and it's not like she's volunteering facts about herself.

She steps closer and bends to take the other axe up from where it's dug into the mat, and she wraps her fingers around it the way Johanna has demonstrated. "And? What else? I need to release later, obviously."

"Obviously," she drawls in response--and she can't help herself, she reaches to push at Kate's finger, the one flat against the handle, adjusting her grip just slightly. It's a totally unnecessary move, there's not really anything that needs adjusting--she's just proving a point, really--and she fixes Kate with an innocent little smile to disarm any offense.

"Look at the target, and swing your arm down along your side. Once it's past your knee, swing it back up. When the blade gets past your head, swing forward--and when your arm is straight, let go. Just make sure you've got a decent follow-through. Here--"

And she steps just behind Kate, like her shadow, and she lets her arm come along Kate's side so she can slip her hand over hers, echoing the grip she's got on the axe handle.

"Swing down," she instructs, like this position is the most natural thing in the world, like she's not stepped in very close to Kate, so close her breath tickles at her ear when she talks. She guides Kate's arm down, almost gently.

Kate is caught off guard by the sudden switch from making fun to actually coaching, and there's no time to really react or protest before the hands-on demonstration begins. Hair at the back of her neck prickles, and Johanna can probably even see the goosebumps race from her ear down her spine the first time she speaks so close.

Though she is focusing on the actual instruction, this has suddenly become a scene from a bad romantic comedy and Kate wonders whether Johanna's world has those, or if she's oblivious to the cliches being misapplied here to their totally platonic situation. The little she's gleaned, from cryptic comments and the fights on the network, suggests that it could definitely be the sort of sad dystopia where this scenario doesn't conjure up a hundred movie references that lead directly to make outs.

She can't resist making the joke anyway, pushing her voice a little lower, just the slightest bit breathy, so when she asks, "Then what?" it comes out lightly suggestive. Plausibly deniable in case Johanna doesn't get it, but there. And she manages not to laugh, which helps.

no subject

no subject

no subject

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

LOOKS AT YOU

HIDES

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject