Who: Miguel and Shepard Where: A Gym on the Station What: Punching something When: After the incident with Isabel, and Miguel and Sarah return from Mexico. Rating: Mid for possible language situation and blood Open? No Status: Logged/Complete
All because she hadn’t been there. A soft grunt as she slammed her fist into the sand filled punching bag. It had happened because she’d been somewhere else. A few more grunts filled the air. The punches just weren’t cutting it. Not into the sand bag. Hauling one of her hands back just enough for one of the omni blades to jut out as if from nowhere, she drove it deep into leathery flesh of the bag, slicing clean through it. The sand began to pour from it when she broke off the blade and it lost its molecular structure and vanished.
That had been a little satisfying. But it didn’t numb the dull ache of failure. The tanktop she wore soaked up some of the sweat that pooled in the most attractive places, and cascaded down her back, but she found she did give one solitary fuck. Her space digitals issue fatigue bottoms were still dry, that’s one thing Shepard did care about. Nothing worse for a temper than swamp butt.
She danced around on her bare feet. She’d have to change out that bag. But right now it was alright.
~~~
Miguel had been keeping up with what had been going on with JR through whatever Sarah had been telling him of the text conversations with her family. Obviously, being miles and hours away from Cuba had meant they couldn't do anything until they got back from Mexico.
As soon as they'd arrived back on the station and left their stuff off, Sarah went to check on Harri and Henry, and on the state of play with whatever was going on with JR. Miguel remembered his offer to Shep, though, and went to see if he could find her. Fighting or drinking seemed like a good way to get over the awful twencen methods of travel. He changed out of his Mexico clothes, had a quick shower and then got into the spider-suit. Lyla stopped hiding under her hologram disguise, and switched to projecting track pants and a tee-shirt over the suit.
After a bit of wandering, he picked up on the sounds of punches and headed towards them. Soon enough, he walked into a gym and found Shep in the process of murdering a punching bag. Leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed, he cleared his throat to let her know there was someone there (if she didn't already). "If you want to spar with something that fights back, I'm up for it," he told her, before walking closer to her.
~~~
Shepard was about to send a few sharp quick jabs into the deflating bag, but his voice kept her from doing it. Her sensors had told her someone was there. Someone friendly. And before he’d got to the door. Her hand paused in mid strike as she turned from the bag. “I don’t know how healthy that would be. Because the only thing that gave me any satisfaction was that.” She lowered her hand and pointed to the slice in the bag. “I don’t know how much Sarah would appreciate me damaging you. I know I didn’t appreciate someone else damaging my significant other, in fact I’d rather this be her face instead of a bag. But more than a few people would be unhappy with me, and I can show restraint. Where she obviously can’t. So if I did that to you, I’d feel that Sarah would be completely justified with whatever she wanted to do.”
Maybe loading up on booze would have been better. Because beating up stuff just wasn’t having the impact she was hoping for. Her temper hadn’t cooled if anything it remained at the same level, or got worse.
~~~
Miguel glanced over at the punching bag where there was a clean slice through the leather and sand was still spilling out every now and again as the bag swung on its chain. "That's from a knife, not a punch," he said, walking closer to Shep and looking for wherever she was storing said knife. Not that it bothered him all that much; the suit was made from Unstable Molecules and could withstand blasters, bullets and blades. He'd bruise if they hit him, but he'd heal quick enough.
"Sarah knows where I am and what I'm doing. And you'd have to make contact with me first in order to do any damage." He took another look at the slice in the bag. Shep was obviously beyond angry, so hopefully he could help her vent some of the rage by letting her have a decent fight. "Do you mind if the lights are dimmed a bit? I don't want my glasses to get broken, that's all."
~~~
“Sure I don’t need them if want to turn them off completely.” With a little twitch of her hand the omni tool lit up along her arm, and she touched a few buttons on her palm with the same hand, effectively lighting up the upgrade to her eyes. And he’d find place for a knife of course. She didn’t have anything on her besides the tool. While her fatigue pants had plenty of pockets. They were all empty.
Shepard scrubbed her hands over her face. “And as far as your girlfriend knowing where you are, and what you’re doing, she probably doesn’t count on me actually hurting you. And I’ve gone against a lot of people who thought they were faster, or stronger, or simply better than me. And that’s fine. They can think that, you can think that. Just don’t get mad if I put you on your ass.” She wouldn’t go into the extent of bringing out the blade though. It was hard not to know how Sarah felt about him. You’d have to be new not to know. Or have lived life in the darkest hole on the station.
~~~
"Off completely is great," Miguel said but then his eyes widened at the lights along her arm, before he smiled a little as he saw her irises glow blue. He quickly took a much closer look, letting his eyes go completely red behind his glasses as he zoomed in and noticed a considerable amount of circuitry in her eyes. "That's... very shocking cool," he said, wondering if he could ask questions once they were done fighting.
"I'm not going to get mad," he said over his shoulder as he headed towards the controls for the lights. "Turning the lights off now," he added, and the room became dark other than the glow from Shep's eyes. Miguel quickly webbed his glasses to the wall to keep them safe from crash landings and random feet-stompings, and let his eyes relax properly. "I don't think I'm faster, stronger or better than you, by the way," he added as he walked back, watching Shep all the time. "I know I'm fast and I know I'm strong. Everything other than that is an unknown to me."
~~~
Shepard could already see the questions forming. Even in the dark. “I know I’m strong,” She tapped her temple. “I also know enough strategy to get around the fast. And I try to avoid reckless.” Sure she was angry, but anger never trumped smarts. “But I’m still human.” Not that he wasn’t, but some on her own team had questioned just how human she still was. “But to make this a fair fight, I’m not going to use anything that I wasn’t born with.” She paused for a second, “Except the stuff that I can’t turn off.” No weapons, no biotics. No augmentations except for what was on her eyes, and what liked her muscles and bones.
“Do you want to climb in the ring so we don’t fuck the whole place up?” She pointed at the roped off mat behind her. Assuming he could see in the complete dark, just like her.
~~~
At Shep's admission of being human, and at wanting a fair fight, Miguel paused. He'd have to be honest with her, and for all his intentions of not hiding who he was any more, telling people still didn't happen easily. A lifetime of secret-keeping couldn't be undone in a few months.
"In the ring is good, yeah. Although I should point out, I... I'm not entirely human, and I can't turn things off." He leapt straight up in the air after that, and somersaulted over Shep's head before doing a handspring onto the top one of the ropes she'd pointed at earlier. He'd noticed that the corners were anchored into the floor before trying this, so he knew he wasn't going to make things collapse with his weight. He stood on the rope for a moment before walking along it with perfect balance the whole time. It was the same as the time he'd taken Peter to the mall and couldn't resist cartwheeling along the safety-rail, ten floors up. "Are you okay with this?" he asked as he backflipped off the rope and landed on his hands on the mat, watching Shep the whole time, "I can promise not to jump onto the ceiling or ropes if you want? And I won't use my talons or fire webs at you either."
~~~
She had watched his acrobatics, she was impressed. He was pretty limber for a human subspecies. “I’m okay with it. I can’t do any of that, but I could headbutt a Krogan and knock his ass out.” Shepard shrugged, knowing what the inevitable question would be. What the fuck was a Krogan. A few quick clicks of the buttons on her palm pad and she brought up a 3D model of a Krogan. Wrex to be exact. ”That is a Krogan. The best one of them, in fact.” She made the little hologram to be exact in size by stretching it with a pinch of her fingers, and a shift of her arm to make him stand on the floor. The holo stood just over seven foot. “I died a few years back, before I got here. Well, most of me died. A company called Cerberus rebuilt me. I’ve got carbon fiber mesh lining my bones and something like it lining my muscles, it’s more flexible, but I have no idea what it’s made out of. The rest of me, all my organs are just normal. It meant I could sustain a blast from the cannon of a Reaper. But probably just one.”
She pulled up a set of the ropes and stepped into the ring. “All I know is that I could do more pull ups than a young Marine, and when tensions were high and adrenaline was rushing I could lift the back tires of a armored all terrain vehicle off of a teammate and not brake, or pull anything.”
~~~
Another handspring had Miguel back on his feet so he could move closer to the holo-display and look up at a Krogan. "Shocking hell, you headbutted that guy?" he asked with a grin, then looked round as she explained what had been done to her. "That sounds... painful. And I don't know what a Reaper is, but I'm assuming it's bad. I can't make cannon blasts, though, so you don't have to worry about those."
Since they were setting down basic rules and limits, Miguel felt okay making one last request. It was probably very obvious anyway, given how he wore his glasses all the time. "I just have one request. Well, two really, but I think 'no hits to the groin' is a given. No bright lights, please. My eyes are really light-sensitive."
~~~
“Well, not specifically this guy. Someone from another clan was- That’s not important, they’re all basically all the same size, except for the females, their shell thing is a little bigger, anyway I headbutted the other guy because he was being a dick because I was an alien. We’ll talk about Reapers another time.” But she shrugged simply. “I don’t remember it. The only part of me they found was my uh.. Brain, and somehow that was still alive. Reentry is hell, from what I can guess, I was already gone before that happened.” Somehow talking about home was calming. She felt she could get the rest with a little hand to hand.
“And I don’t cheat. At least not when it’s not life or death. But I figured the thing with your eyes, very few people agree to sparing in the dark. But if you could avoid punching me in the tits that would be great, JR does most the work, but I’m still playing cow sometimes, could get messy.” And the ache would be a bitch. And not that the Krogan could hear her, or would be even aware of her, she gave him a farewell nod and the holo was gone. It was time for business.
~~~
Okay, no punching Shep in the chest, no jumping onto the ropes or the ceiling, and no webs or talons. Easy enough. He glanced over to where the holo-display had been when it disappeared, and then watched Shep. Her body language had shifted and he knew the time for talking was over for now; Miguel ran his mouth at times, but Spider-man? Hardly ever.
He dropped into a ready stance, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and waited for Shep to signal that she was ready. The instant she did, he was on the move, circling Shep. He moved quickly, although not at his top speed, and he knew he'd have to pull his punches, like always. Moving in quickly with a couple of jabs to start things off, he backflipped away and landed on one hand, spinning round as he did so he was facing her again.
~~~
Okay, she kinda had an idea of how fast he was, a little curse rushed out of her after the punches landed. She rubbed the areas where his strikes landed. “Not bad, I’ll probably feel it more in the morning, but…” Right then she was beginning to feel the rushes of adrenaline as her body told her it was more than ready for a little payback. She was Commander Shepard, not some wet behind the ears recruit.
Her stance shifted her stance a little. Usually she was a brawler, but she had some training. She was more on a defencive stance. One that could stand up to species that moved a little faster than she did.
~~~
Without even pausing, Miguel had continued to pivot on his hand, his legs spinning round to land a double hit on Shep's side. His first kick connected and he twisted away almost instantly, pushing off of the ground with his hand, but then Shep's arm clamped down on his trailing leg as she moved with the impact. He managed to land on his other foot and kept that leg straight as he tried to use his trapped leg to bring Shep in close enough that he could get a couple more punches in.
~~~
Shepard grinned when came at her with a few kicks. But her attempt to catch the first one ended up with a few sore ribs. She clenched her teeth against the ache and kept from a little celebration when she actually caught his second kick. But she did smirk when he yanked her forward to try and use that caught foot against her, and only managed to yank her close enough that she took a sweep at the leg that kept him standing, as she relinquished the offending foot.
“I have got to say, you fight pretty. Were you a dancer?”
~~~
Shock! Okay, she was stronger than he'd estimated. The instant she let go of his leg, he leapt up, intending to somersault over her head once more and twist round to face her back, but she managed to clip his foot with her leg. He landed to the side of her instead, almost landing in the ropes. Pushing his hair back from his face, he shook his head at her question. "Thanks, but no. Never had a lesson in my life."
He needed more room. Another handspring had him move back into the center area of the ring and out of Shep's range for a moment while he quickly went over what he was learning about Shep. Less than a second later and he was on the move again, going low this time with a sweeping kick of his own.
~~~
“A natural… Nice.” Shepard kept on the defense, intending on letting him come to her. He was younger after all. And she was out of practice, she hadn’t sparred with anyone since before she got put on the island. Her last shore leave.
She tried to block the coming sweep at her feet, but she didn’t move it time, and with the attempted grab she fell flat on her back. Boy she was out of shape.
~~~
He let the momentum of his kick die down as Shep thudded onto the mat, and was back on his feet straight away. If this had been an actual fight, he'd have pressed the attack, gone in with a punch from high above or hit out with his talons or whatever, but they were sparring and so he wasn't even considering anything like that. He walked over to where she was lying, and held a hand out to her.
~~~
Shepard had half the mind to grab his hand and yank him down with her. But she didn’t. With a grunt she used his hand as leverage and pulled herself up. “I am out of shape.” She confessed. The easy life wasn’t cohesive with her former soldier lifestyle. She could kick a punching bag’s ass but a not quite human, who could fight like a brawler and look like the mix between a breakdancer and a male ballet dancer.
“Alright back to your corner. Give an old lady a minute.” She joked.
~~~
"You're not old. And if you want, we can do this regularly," he offered, once Shep was back on her feet and he'd somersaulted up to perch on the top turnbuckle of the ropes. "I need to keep in practice as well, so we'd be doing each other a favor."
Miguel wanted to spar with as many people on the station as he could; he had no combat training whatsoever, never mind dancing, and was making everything up as he went along. Even if he only sparred with people who used martial arts or drunken boxing or whatever, and didn't actually train with them at all, he'd still be able to work out countermoves in his own style for any time a door opened to somewhere that needed a Spider-man. And he really needed to learn how to fight effectively without bouncing all round the place like a rubber ball.
~~~
“I’ve been doing what I do for… shit. More than twenty years. And it hasn’t been an easy twenty years. Not that I’d change any of it. Just even being rebuilt. It doesn’t make me feel any less.. Worn.” Shepard never imagined getting knocked on her ass would knock the temper clean out of her.
“Tell me, you’re smart, was I being irrational? Assuming you heard what happened.” She crossed over to the opposing corner he was in and leaned against the turnbuckle. Stretching her arms so that they spread out onto the top rope.
~~~
Twenty years?! Shock. He hadn't even been Spider-man for a full year yet, back home.
"Sarah told me what happened," he said, standing up straight and pacing along one of the top ropes while he recapped what he knew in case he was missing anything. "JR's got a mark on him, Isabel touched it twice and both times resulted in short-term memory loss and fatigue for JR. And the second time caused Isabel to get knocked back as well. I think you'd be right to be a bit annoyed, but only about the second touch. That said, I'm talking about it objectively while you've been under stress since you discovered JR was pregnant, if not since he was turned female."
He stopped pacing back and forth at that point and looked over at Shep before jumping down off the ropes. He walked closer to her and stopped in the middle of the mat. "I personally think you overreacted a bit, but it's not irrational at all. It's understandable and I wouldn't blame you for it in the slightest. Shock knows, if it was happening to Sarah, I'd be looking to tear people apart."
~~~
Shepard listened as he rehashed, cliff’s notes style, watching him walk along the top rope. Nodding as he went along marking each point as correct. “I was pretty damn tempted to knock her on her ass at the very least. He was just getting over the fatigue he felt since he got pregnant. The female part is… Weird it’s still fucking weird. But only because he started out as a man, not exactly stressful. It’s all the pregnancy. Women in my time don’t.. Have these kinds of problems. Trouble pregnancies only come from hybrid pregnancies and even those are rare.”
So in short, she was still stressing. She rubbed her hands over her face stretching it a bit from nose to outer cheeks. “But of course they’re all worried about Isabel. Hah.”
~~~
"More than they're worried about JR?" That sounded... off. The Sullys all seemed to care fiercely about each other, something Miguel was definitely not used to. His mom cared about him when she needed money, and Gabri cared when he wanted help. It was part of why he really liked Sarah's family; they'd already made him feel a lot more welcome than his own ever had.
"I'll admit, I was a bit concerned about the knock-back because, well, I like Isabel. But not nearly as much as I was worried about what was going on with JR and the weird mark. He's never done anything like that before, right? Sarah told me he doesn't have magic like her or Tommy or Rachel. Do you want to keep sparring, by the way?"
~~~
“I might be exaggerating because I’m pissed. And not enough people are ready to jump her with me. If I had my team, no questions asked, she’d be staring down the barrel of at least ten blasters, and have a Turian taking potshots at her from a snipers nest.” She never missed them more than she did right now. Someone to back her up without hesitation.
“But he’s .... I’ve never been blasted back by accidentally touching the mark. But he’s always forgetting it’s there. But I didn’t mark it down as all that important because when I was a guy I was pretty tatted up and I couldn’t tell you what a single one of them was, except for the ones I have now.” Shepard smirked just a little. “And to answer the sparring question, while I’m sure I needed it, getting knocked on my ass did a little damage to my back. Nothing to worry about, nothing that I can’t fix with a little trip to the Normandy... But leaning here I’m really starting to feel it. So I probably shouldn’t. I didn’t pack any medigel into my omnitool.”
~~~
What the shock was a Turian, he wondered? Questions for another time, along with those things she'd mentioned earlier. Reavers or something. Still, Miguel listened carefully as Shep talked about the mark and how it affected JR. "None of your male tattoos looked like his mark, did they?" he wondered absently.
"Oh, shock, sorry," Miguel said when Shep admitted to hurting her back, his eyes widening as he shifting from being ready to continue sparring to showing obvious concern. "Do you need help getting to the Normandy?"
~~~
“No. I mean I didn’t get a good look on my back, but I don’t think so. Not any that stuck around.” Shepard began toying around with her omnitool again absently bringing a holo of Garrus Vakarian, her favorite Turian. The image sized just over six foot two.
She chuckled softly. “Don’t worry about it. Age, and wars, and having babies do that too. I’ve lived through worse. I just know that I need to nurse it a little. And next time come prepared.” She waved him off. The ache was good. It was kind of cathartic. “Nothing like getting your ass handed to you remove any anger you had. And to remind you of how out important exercise really is.”
~~~
His eyes naturally flicked to the lights on Shep's arm as she tapped at things, and then to the hologram of yet another alien. "Is this someone from your team?" he wondered, walking round it a little to see the alien from a different angle. Shep's mention of a next time had him grinning, though. "Next time will be good. The more people I spar with, the more fighting styles I'll have to counter and the better I'll get. Or that's the theory, at least." He stretched as he spoke, reaching for the ceiling with both hands and going up onto his toes before relaxing again. He might head to the mall or down to the Spine for some web-swinging and climbing later, unless something came up.
"Do you want the lights back on?" he asked. He'd need to free his glasses from his webbing before that happened, or risk being blinded.
~~~ “Garrus Vakarian. He was part of my team from the very beginning. One of the few that rejoined my team after Cerberus put be back together, without question. Wrex couldn’t he was helping put his planet back together. But Garrus dropped what he was doing the second I found him. And, of course, got him out of the mess he had found himself in.” She said it with such fondness, that the mess couldn’t have been misconstrued as a bad memory. “Next time I’ll last longer. I won’t be so easily knocked down.” Or she hoped anyway. Down time wouldn’t be down time anymore it would be spent with push ups, pull ups, and anything that would return her upper body strength to Commander Shepard.
“Oh, nah. But if you could help me out with the punching bag that would be great. There’s little bots that get rid of the dirt, but I’m not going to be able to lift that one off the hooks and put a fresh one on.” She pointed in the direction of the bag, and the replacement bag in the corner.
~~~
“I’m looking forward to next time already,” Miguel said, before looking behind him to where Shep was pointing. “I can do that, sure.” It was hard to keep from bouncing round the place now, but he wasn’t going to be that bit-head that rubbed in how much better he was feeling than everyone else in the room. He couldn’t keep from jumping clear over the turnbuckle, though. He picked the punching bag up easily, making sure to keep his talons folded away, and carried it over to where the damaged one was hanging. It was an easy enough move to switch them over, although the damaged one spilled yet more sand out while he was lifting it down.
“Where do I put this one?” he asked, turning it round in his hands so that the damaged part was facing upwards and he wasn’t spilling sand everywhere.
~~~
“I’ll take it, I can patch it up in the Normandy and fill it again.” It had been the reaching part that she felt wary about. She was more than sure she could handle carrying the slightly deflated bag back to her ship. “You know, you should consider taking up dancing. Since you don’t have any techniques, they’ll give you a footing. If you haven’t already, that is. I’ll put together some vids from the Normandy’s archives of a few fighting techniques. And see if Jarvis can get some of the war room projectors to pull up 3D models to demonstrate. I’d offer to teach you, but as you can tell I’m very rusty.” She’d gotten too comfortable in domestic life.
Shepard arched her back, stretching it hoping to get range of motion back. The pain she felt from doing so written on her face, and in the soft noises she was making. Retirement, that’s what that was. The soft squish of retirement.
~~~
He was going to spill more sand, Miguel realized, so he quickly let the bag drop down onto the floor and gave it a temporary seal with some webbing while Shep suggested different things for him to study. The dancing sounded like something he could do with Sarah when her knee was feeling better, and the vids and holos sounded great.
He looked round again when he heard Shep’s little pain-noises. “Are you sure you want to carry this, if you’ve got a sore back? I can take it to the Normandy for you, it’s not a problem. And all your suggestions sound brilliant.” He hoisted the punching bag back up onto one shoulder so he still had a free hand.
~~~
Shepard paused a second. “You know you’re right. You’re young, you’re spry.. I’m going to let you lug that thing, and show you my ship. Because I don’t want to carry it… but well, I don’t want to carry it. I’ll be awkward, and lumpy.” She gave him a grin because she could have carried it. But why? And he hadn’t seen the prettiest ship in the port yet.
And the shower system in the Normandy had her name written all over it. “And I will beguile you with boring war stories, and reward you with alien booze this place won’t see for another hundred years at least. At most a hundred and fifty.”
~~~
"War stories and alien booze sounds pretty shocking good to me." He grinned back and then walked over to the light controls. A quick swipe with his talons freed his glasses from most of his webbing, but he could pick the little bits off once they got to Shep's ship and he wasn't carrying a 70lb punching bag. "I'm going to turn the lights back on in ten seconds," he said, so that Shep would have time to sort out the glow in her eyes, and he could get his glasses back on. Once everyone was ready, the lights came back up. Miguel still had to wait a few seconds for his eyes to adjust properly, but then he was ready to follow wherever Shep was going.