Who: Maria Hill and Methos What: En garde When: Thursday morning (backdated) Where: Remote clearing Warnings: TBD Status: Closed/TBC in comments
Something Maria was learning about today’s workout was that she was very much out of practice with a sword. Methos was good. Damn good! She’d like to attribute that to his long years of practice, but she could tell her skills with a sword were rusty. They were only fifteen minutes into sparring and she was already working up a sweat. And frustration with herself. This was the second time he’d disarmed her, and she’d had to dive/roll to retrieve her weapon…and missed.
“Damn it!”
***
Well her frustration made Methos stay where he was and put the blade down into the ‘waiting between bouts’ posture. There was no sense driving the attack when she wasn’t ready. This wasn’t about attacking like their lives depended on it.
“Take a minute. There’s no rush.” Obviously for right this second he needed to stop going for the disarms...it was habit from all of the immortal fights. You wanted your opponent to not have a blade in their hand. He tended to do the same thing with Wes when they sparred.
***
Maria got to her feet. It was tempted to just grab the sword from the ground in anger, but you didn’t treat your weapons like that. You showed them even more respect than you did people or you didn’t deserve to hold it.
“There is if it were a fight,” she grumbled.
***
“But we’re not in a fight.” Methos had trained both ways, where everything should be treated as a fight to the death and where that was stupid because you had to build the muscle memory and become adept before trying to guard your life with a length of metal. “Stop treating it like I’ll kick you while you’re down for right now. I promise when I am going to start doing that I’ll warn you first.”
She probably was going to get irritated at him for that. “You and the blade need to get to know each other first.”
***
Oh yeah. Methos got glared at for that. She wasn’t some novice to be treated gently. “An enemy isn’t going to give a warning,” was the next growled out thing. The sword was given a slow spin and a few practice swipes as she paced around.
“The blade obviously didn’t like being shoved into a blind date with me.” Of course it was the blade’s fault. Ha ha.
***
He wasn’t treating her like a novice, he was treating her like someone he expected to have some common sense about training. “You’ve probably heard the saying that if you know yourself and the enemy you needn’t fear a hundred battles.” Oh Sun Tzu, it amazed him still that his old teacher and mentor was so well remembered even now.
Of course it was the insufferable bastard was right when he said things like that. There had been many arguments over it in the hundred years he’d been with the man.
“Remember for every battle where you know yourself but not the enemy you suffer a defeat with every loss. Right now we’re getting to know each other. It’s the proper way to do this.”
***
God damn it. Now he sounded like any one of the good sensei she’s had over the years. It earned Methos another bland glare as she paced closer. “Man who stands on toilet is high on pot?”
She immediately shook her head as she held up her free hand. “No. I know. Disrespectful commentary has no place here. I’m just frustrated.” At least she admitted it. “It’s been a while since I used a sword, and I never was,” the best, ahem, “great at it.”
***
“You can do the disrespectful commentary, I don’t mind. It’s a way to let off steam.” Methos had actually chuckled at her comment. It sounded like something he’d tell MacLeod to make him make that ‘stop it’ face at him.
“You’re rushing in is all. Get a feel for it before you try to go for the trickier moves. It’s the same as any weapon that way.” She’d outshoot him and would undoubtedly mop the floor with him if it was a straight hand to hand battle but Methos got the feeling she didn’t want to be bad at anything not just that she wanted to be better in most areas.
***
Maria was the definition of perfectionist. At least insofar as her fighting skills were concerned. This was a mild display. Methos should see her when she’d been Agent Hill. Every waking moment was about being perfect and by the book.
She nodded to his instruction with a sigh then forced calm to her mind before taking up a ready stance again. “If you crack my knuckles I’m punching you in the face.”
***
“Live steel, I’m not cracking your knuckles.” Methos chuckled again and took his own ready stance. He was patient, waiting for her to make the first move remembering all of his own instruction over the years. As a Horseman he didn’t hold back. But he wasn’t Death anymore. Not really even though it was still inside of him.
“After all nothing spoils a nice morning like a trip to the clinic for stitches.”
***
Maria circled slowly to the right as she waited to see if she could get a better opening. “I’ve had worse mornings,” she said. Some of them had happened here. The most recent one was waking up next to Thor, believing she and Peter had broken up which all led to her current state. She’d ended up kicking Thor’s heart into the trash and her and Peter getting into a physical fight. And all of it was her own fault.
She should have buried these thoughts, but couldn’t help it. The frustration of it all translated into a rushed advance. At least she had enough control not to turn her attack into anything more than practice.
***
That was the thing when you had used a sword as long as Methos had, you could tell the other person’s emotional state through their actions. Maria was in no mood to be doing this if her attack was any indication. Or rather she was in the mood to hurt someone but at least she was disciplined enough to not go that far.
Methos had said he wouldn’t crack her knuckles but that didn’t mean he didn’t brush aside an attack that was off balance from her rush and wrap his arm around her throat as he pivoted and throw her to the ground hard enough to knock some of the air out of her. It was followed up by the sword point pointing at her about an inch above her chest.
“That would have gotten you killed. What is putting you so far off balance?”
***
Maria hadn’t been thrown like that since she’d sparred against Barton, Romanov or Fury. After the stars cleared from her eyes and she could take in a breath she saw the blade poised above her chest. Then she rolled her eyes and huffed. She was better than that.
“Stupid shit,” she said as she opened her hand around the hilt of her sword to indicate defeat. “Things I’m obviously not dealing with well.”
***
“Well the stupid shit can be the hardest to deal with.” As soon as she let go of the hilt Methos moved his sword to the side and reached down to offer her a hand up off the ground. “But I think we should let you work on it a little before we try the sparring again. Maybe over a coffee or something.”
***
“I’ve been trying,” she said as she took the hand up from the ground. “But it’s an area I have very little experience in so I feel like I’m just treading water.”
She sighed as she picked the sword up from the ground, then held it out to Methos hilt first. “All the coffee in Madison Valley isn’t going to solve this.”
***
“One step at a time Maria.” He took the sword but then he handed it back to her hilt first himself. “You have to keep it to get used to it.” He wasn’t going to let her get away with not coming back to do this again.
“The coffee is just a side benefit.”
***
She hadn’t offered it back as an excuse not to try anymore. It wasn’t hers. Protocol dictated that she give it back. But since he wasn’t going with that she took it back with a nod.
“I can do coffee,” she said with a small smile.
***
“Well then, coffee it is.” Methos took his own sword and sheathed it. “Shall we?” A cup of coffee sounded pretty good right about now.
***
Maria wasn’t sure why she was doing this other than a little voice in the back of her head that sounded suspiciously like a cross between Pepper and Nat was telling her to open up, let someone in. Trust someone. Ugh.
Twenty minutes later they had a seat at a table. Maria had a tall cup of coffee, black, and as neutral an expression as she could manage. “I was dating Peter Hale. Things were...good. I guess. They seemed that way to me, anyway. Then the town screwed with our heads. Peter and I had broken up, and I was with Thor. After we all came back to our senses, I pretty much broke Thor’s heart but Peter became an asshole.”
***
If nothing else Methos was a good listener which sometimes led to being able to get people to talk. Mostly what he had done since they were on their way to get coffee was let her say things with just an occasional comment to keep her going. But the full explanation came out far sooner than he’d expected. Maria seemed the sort to need you to pry a bit before she let anything go.
“This place does seem to enjoy the screwing with the heads part. I could definitely live without that.”
***
In essence, Methos was her sensei for the moment. Maria trusted people in that position. A long time ago there had been a similar conversation over ice cream sundaes about wouldn’t she rather go to her prom than compete in the national Kung Fu tournament. That had ended with an explanation about how she’d never gone on a date or even asked out, and she’d gone on to win the tournament for her age group. Maria wasn’t sure this conversation would end the same way.
“If it were just me getting screwed with I could handle it. I’m prepared for that.” Nevermind how she picked a fight with Peter later because she’d been pissed off and hurt. “But Thor is a friend and there are all kinds of complications there. Everything seemed so real, and it all exploded.”
***
Methos wouldn’t end any conversations quite the same way as that other one she’d had. He was a believer in living your life. Yes, there were duties and needs and things you had to do and you should do them well and to the best of your ability. But you shouldn’t forget to live either. And you weren’t living if it was all duties, and needs and fights and wars.
“It’s never just the one person with their head being screwed with even without other joining the madness. Friends will be involved because they care if someone hurts you through this. Not to say it’s not worse to have someone get messed up along with you and hurt.” There had been enough people that had been hurt or killed because of who he was and had been just because it was easier to hit at a normal person than to try to take him down. It was why Methos had become other people and stayed away from the immortal idiocy.
“What is important is what you do with it after. What can you do to make it better?” You couldn’t fix it. But you could try to minimize damage.
***
Maria snorted. "Avoid him like the plague and keep my head down." At least that was the only answer she could come up with. "My experience with this kind of thing...let's just say it's generous to say it's limited."
Then she found herself blathering out things not many people knew, and even less here knew. "I never dated in high school. Never went to prom. In basic you didn't have the physical energy for anything let alone something like a romantic life. Then I got recruited by SHIELD and that became my focus." She scowled as she looked at her coffee. "You don't miss what you never knew." Until now.