Becker wasn’t the take a long holiday kinda bloke but sometimes he wondered what a few days off would feel like. The work was important and everything they did was important but he wouldn’t mind a few days that didn’t have some kind of problem. A couple of days of simple training he would be happy with it, a couple of days without someone turning into something or being compelled to pick fruit would be a nice break.
He knew he needed to get back to the flat in an hour to get the puppies for a walk so he closed up his office and headed down to the training rooms to see who was down there, in one that had the lights a little dimmed he saw one of the people on Team 16. Clarice Fong.
“What are you working on?” He asked after watching her for a few moments. He had his own guess but he wanted to hear it from her.
Clarice, in her effort to be a normal person but also a useful one, had decided to, at some point, push her weird feelings aside by focusing on training and being better as an agent. She spent quite a few days a week doing so after hours, or in the weekends, safe when Atlantis had some weird surprise for her. Having been selected for a mission in space had been a trial by fire if there ever was one, but it still wasn’t enough. And the experience she had as a mutant underground “operative” of sorts also wasn’t the same as belonging to an official organization.
She was, at this point, trying to combine blinking with strategic movement such as falling, rolling away or engaging in combat right out of the portal. Or something like it. Things had gone a little wonky when she realized someone was watching. No, not just ‘someone’. Becker. And he had an interesting question.
“Um… I’m trying to work my powers into fighting. Usually, I blink and run, or blink, pause, then go ahead with whatever I need to do. I want to streamline it because sometimes I might know the place but not who’s where in it.”
Becker nodded stepping into the room grabbing a punching pad off of the ground. He understood, a lot of people who came from different worlds where they were on the run didn’t get the chance to train the way others did.
“Do you usually pause when something happens in general?” He asked, he’d read her file and seen the report from the mission but wanted to hear what she had to say. Without hesitation, he through the pad at her.
Blinking, Clarice frowned at the question and paused, appropriately, to think about it. “No, I’m usually pretty much deep into fight or flight. More flight than fight, actually. But when I do use my powers, it’s usually to portal into a hidden place like a storage locker or a dark corner and then yeah, I pause to see where to go next.”
She picked up the pad and rolled her shoulders, sliding it over her hand. “The thing is, being on the run and trying to break people out of prison is a lot different from what we’re doing here. I want to be fluid. Like, it still takes a while for me to open a portal large enough to fit through but I am a little faster now, and I wanna be able to hit the ground running. You know? Show up behind or in front of an enemy and punch his lights out before he can react. That sort of thing.”
Nodding he focused more on what she did with the pad than anything else. He'd never been much for hiding unless it was strategically the better option and there were a few times he could remember it was key.
"Smoothing out your movements, in general, will help you get better when you first arrive somewhere. I can't help you with the powers aspect of what you're working on but Charles Xavier might be able to give you a few tips to help prepare mentally for that kind of thing. What I can do is get your movements more fluid." He offered taking a step forward. "If you're interested."
Eyes widening, Clarice nodded. She wasn’t expecting Becker to know anything about how to improve her powers, or portal opening times or anything like that. But he was a good combat trainer (even though she always had May) and that, she could take advantage of.
“I am. Like I said, I’ve been running and hiding more than I’ve been fighting and I need to get out of that mindspace.” She looked at the pad. “So… We’re punching each other out, is that it?”
Becker smirked shaking his head. “May has you covered on your punching out skills.” He knew May was one of the best and from what he could tell Clarice needed more confidence, ability to stay calm.
“You need to face fears and gain the confidence to stand your ground to fight.” He held up his hands. “No judgement, we all go through a time of needing our confidence lifted, especially when running right into danger.” Becker wasn’t going to share his.
“So, what we’re going to do is play catch, and occasionally I’ll have the neat little thing some of the magic group rigged up throw things from you at another angle.”
Clarice snickered along with Becker. May was responsible for a lot of Clarice’s improvement in hand-to-hand combat; whereas before Clarice knew enough to defend herself most of the time, now she had better posture, timing and effect. And less of a chance to break bones trying to hit someone else.
She wasn’t exactly into being told her problems were emotional (again), but it was probably true. She had spent a lot of time on the run, fighting out of fear and not out of a sense of duty. Like when John had been trying to help her with her powers, she probably needed to think about positive things rather than focusing on fear and hatred.
“Okay just don’t make me meditate and focus on my inner...whatever.” She pleaded, sighing in relief when Becker clarified. “Whoa, magic? Well that’s going to be an added challenge. Okay, cool. I like it. So instead of running at you every time, I’ll portal sometimes. And try to dodge whatever your magical doodad gets you to throw at me. Okay.”
Taking a deep breath, Clarice rolled her shoulders. “I’m ready.”
Becker blinked a few times. “Do I look like the sort that lights smelly sticks and sits on the ground to contemplate the universe and my place in it?” He didn’t really think about his place in the world past how he could help the fight and how he needed to help all the teams.
“Yes, that’s the goal.” He told her moving to the side to pick up a couple of different sized balls he dropped the majority of them at his feet holding one he tossed it in the air catching it a few times before tossing it to Clarice. He needed to get her into a rhythm before he broke it up.
“Enjoying Atlantis otherwise?” Yes, idle conversation was also part of his plan.
Raising one eyebrow, Clarice blinked back, shrugging. “I don’t know your life, man, chill.” She almost added that some contemplation might not hurt once in a while but that ruined the hell out of her own argument so she just decided to move along with things.
Ball catching. Clarice was about to protest but cut herself off remembering that Daniel from Karate Kid also thought his car washing crap was all bullshit but had been proven wrong in the end. So, diligently, Clarice jumped and ran to catch the balls and toss them back to Becker; his question threw her off and she missed one.
“What?” She noticed the ball pass her by taking some of her hair with it and exhaled heavily. Setting her jaw, Clarice ran to pick up the stray ball and tossed it back with a little more force. “Depends on the day.”
Becker tilted his head as she told him to chill. He got the clear impression that he wasn't the one that needed chill. "I'll keep in mind to limit dry jokes."
He focused on passing the ball back and forth noting the question distracted her. He caught the ball after she went to get it.
"Care to elaborate?"
He wasn’t. Generally speaking Clarice really did need to chill in many ways and about many things, but obviously, if you told her that it would produce the opposite effect anyway. She shrugged as Becker admitted to that having been a joke. Dry humor was hard enough without focusing on anything else, let alone when you were.
The more they continued, the easier Clarice found it to work her hands and eyes independently from thought and speech. She still wanted to say no when he asked her to elaborate about her love-hate thing for Atlantis. “Well I’m sure you know-” She threw the ball. “-this place can be an asshole. Or the powers that be in this place. I don’t know. Don’t care. Sometimes it’s amazing, sometimes it makes me angry, is all.”
Becker nodded. It was difficult to handle some of the odd moments that happened in Atlantis. “Sometimes it’s experiments gone wrong, or just the way that Atlantis is.” He didn’t always like it though.
“What have you enjoyed?” He asked her as a gust of wind hit them from the left. He’d triggered the magic built in.
“It’s been on my ass nonstop since I got here.” Clarice replied, jaw set. She didn’t much care why anymore; that it was just the way it was around here had been well and truly drilled into her mind now.
Looking to the left as soon as the unexpected wind hit them, Clarice blinked, then realized the ball wasn’t there and this was probably a trick. Clarice immediately darted her eyes from the left to Becker, trying to keep her attention on both locations. “The food. Being safe from certain death or from being thrown into a hole and forgotten.”
Becker had the wind pause and start again with no logical pattern as he changed some of the rhythm of the ball.
“Just be glad you haven’t turned into a stuffed bear yet,” that seemed to be one that had been more amusing to some than not. “You get somewhat used to it. And sometimes I hear some have fun with it.” He wasn’t going to say he always had fun with it.
“Food is pretty good, and you like both your teammates? Not just training with May?”
Clarice had to remind herself that in the worst of times, she’d had to work under much more stress and weird conditions, once having to open a portal for John to jump from a car right onto someone. This should be no big deal. No winds or balls should stand in her way.
But the idea of Becker as a stuffed bear might. Clarice snorted in laughter. “Wait, did you?”
She continued catching the ball with a lot less drops than before. It seemed to be a matter of rhythm, turning this into something like driving, which you did almost in the background while other things went on that also needed your utmost attention. “Yeah, they’re cool. Super different skill sets isn’t that strange for me, we’re all mutants where I come from but we’re all very different.”
“I’ll leave that one as a mystery.” He answered with a small smirk.
Becker heard a sound to the side as he caught the ball and looked over at one of the people who ran around the base delivering messages. Sighing he tossed the ball back at Clarice holding up a hand to let her know to hang on a moment. Taking the piece of paper, he read over it carefully and shrugged.
“Well Fong looks like our session is going to get cut short a little bit, I can set up the magic shit around here so you can work on your own, but we’ll schedule time again to get you working here and on a couple of other things. I’ll give the trainers some notes too.”
Clarice eyed Becker, raising one eyebrow. “That means yes. That’s what ‘no comment’ always means.”
She laughed and caught the ball as the messenger came along. While Becker read, Clarice threw the ball up into the air and caught it with her other hand, over and over. She was getting good at catching things, at least.
“Oh, okay. That’s cool.” She told Becker, smiling. “Thanks for your help, Becker.”