Armel hit the punching bag over and over again. Droplets of sweat covered his skin after doing that for almost an hour, though he wasn’t aware of the time. He was just focused on letting all his frustration and pain out by hitting the bag again and again until his arms gave out.
After last night, he briefly thought about leaving. Rose was the reason he had arrived there. Literally. She had wished for him. That had to mean something, didn’t it? Armel guessed he had read her wrong all this time. They were just friends. Very good friends, as she said. So the thought of going back to his home did cross his mind, but he quickly discarded it as it was just his broken heart not thinking straight. He knew he would get over it. He just needed time.
He brushed the back of his hand against his forehead, wiping some of the sweat away, and kept beating the shit out of the punching bag until he heard a noise behind him.
Riley had learned a while ago that staying fit, beating shit up usually helped with reflexes and that could mean life or death. So when she walked into the room she paused making enough sound as she nearly tripped over some stupid bag left in the way.
“If you want the room to yourself, I can go for a run or something,” Riley said. She didn’t know the dude, sure, she’d seen him around but right now he looked more likely to take something out and she had no idea if he had powers or not.
Armel rested his forehead against the punching bag for a second, breathing heavily as he tried to catch his breath. He swallowed and turned to look at her, giving her a light shake of his head. “You can have it,” he said. “My arms were about to fall off anyway.” He could keep going, but he knew if he did he would be sore as hell in the morning and not be at his 100% while training.
The guy looked wrecked, and not in the worked out to hard kind of wrecked, in the kind that made her cringe, the kind of wrecked she’d felt when she found out her ex was cheating on her.
“You want to spar?” She knew he just said his arms were about to fall off but he looked like he could use a little help. “Unless your arms really are going to fall off, because I’m not sure I would be okay seeing that, might be a little too much.”
Armel moved to drink some water and chuckled at her comment. “I think they’ll stay attached for a little while. So sure, why not.” Sparring was good. It made him focus and concentrate on tactics and not just hit something over and over again.
Riley dropped her bag and got her gloves up, as she put them on she looked over at him. “So, any reason you’re trying to murder a punching bag? Or one of those ‘don’t want to talk about it kinda things?’”
“It’s that obvious, uh?” He let out a small sigh. “Just got the ‘just a friend’ talk with the girl I like. So that was me getting all the frustration out,” he said.
“I know the look,” she shrugged with a small smirk. Frowning she nodded. “Ouch, I’m sorry.” Riley didn’t add that it wasn’t a fun conversation on either side. “How much were you into her?”
“It’s okay,” he said with a light shrug. He figured it hadn’t been easy for either of them, though at that moment he was more focused on his own frustration than hers. “A lot. We sort of had a past together... I think that’s what made things complicated between us.”
“The past thing, that either goes really well or really badly, sorry about that. That’s rough.” Riley frowned. “But if you care about her, at least she didn’t tell you to get out of her life altogether, but you still might want to give her some space, for you more than her.”
“We weren’t completely honest with each other while we were together years ago. We were on a mission, opposite governments, spy stuff” he explained. He knew their past had played against them. Starting a relationship while pretending to be someone else wasn’t the smartest thing. It could’ve been just a fling, but Rose was different. Even after finding out Elsa St. Martin wasn’t who she said she was, he still wanted to know more about her. “I know we both need space.”
“Anything that starts with lies, even if it is for your job, that’s never a good way to start a relationship, makes it hard to know what is real or not, even if there are genuine feelings there.” She frowned. She’d seen it happen to people she cared about. “But, hey, least you know now. Better than waiting in limbo.”
“I should’ve known it wasn’t a great start and it’d backfire, but I guess I was just hoping things work out somehow. But that’s what love does, right? Makes you blind or something,” he said with a small soft scoff. “Yeah. I’m glad it happened sooner than later. We’ve been going back and forth since I got here in December so it’s good to finally know.”
“Damn, six months?” Riley whistled lowly. “Sorry, that’s a long time not to know what’s what, it’d drive me to beat the crap out of something too.” She admitted with a small shrug. “Well, let’s see what you’re made of.” She said getting into the ring.
“Yeah. It was a little crazy.” At least he knew now, so he could move on. It had felt good to talk to someone about it, instead of just destroying a punching bag.
He got into the ring after her and smirked. “Let’s.”