Dance Dance (MATT)

[Axelle Flint]

It was that time of day again. Axelle changed into her workout clothes, pulled her hair back and checked to make sure that her usual bag was still stable on it's anchor and pushed against it as hard as she could, pleased when it swung a little. Her black eye and bruised side were things of the recent past as she stretched and fetched a nearby radio before carefully inserting a mix CD and turning the machine on before she sat down and wrapped her hands. As the upbeat, electric-guitar heavy rock music filled the room she was grateful that at least she didn't often have to share this room with anyone else. Usually when someone heard the music they moved on, knowing that the room was occupied and really, who wanted to work out in front of people?

Axelle had a goal. Academically she would be okay to graduate by the end of the year as long as she kept her grades above a C (which other than English was no problem) she just needed to make sure that her powers were sufficiantly controlled. She was trying to double her control efforts and today had been very difficult but she was happy to have made it through without breaking one single thing. Therefore she was greatly relieved to be in a place where she could let go. This was her sanctuary in many ways. Well the bag was at least since she didn't have to worry about breaking it, she could just hit it and it was okay.

After her wrapping was complete she pulled on her gloves, checked her shoes and popped to her feet. She supposed it was a blessing that despite how clumsy she could be she was at least light on her feet when she was boxing. She hopped over to her bag as the song changed over and did a few gentle taps on the bag to gauge her distance (it was routine at this point despite knowing exactly where she could stand) before she began to practice. Her entire body felt relaxed and empowered. Without the added pressure of holding herself back her mind was able to take off to parts unknown too as her body worked itself through a familiar routine she’d set up with her trainer years ago. She pretended she was boxing against someone, ducking, weaving and striking when she imagined that her opponent had an opening.

Because she didn’t want the “match” to end just yet, she and her “opponent” were fairly evenly matched. Inevitably though she was tiring herself out and with a fairly powerful right hook that sent the bag swinging a little more than previous hits she “won”. Smiling happily and tired, she flopped onto the ground with her gloves behind her outstretched legs as she watched the bag swing to a stop….right before the door was thrown open by a pretty grand entrance. She stared for a moment, trying to comprehend the situation. Finall she said "Mike right?" To the gigantic blonde who's sat next to Marcus at the Talk.

[Matt Davis]

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Matt bounced the basketball off of the floor as he walked, passing it from the left to the right in front of his feet. His eyes examined the rings as they spun in the air, paused on the ground, and then bounced in the other direction. How strange was that. It didn’t even make all that much sense. He bounced it one way, and then it came back another. Why didn’t it just keep going the way it was thrown?

Thud...Thud… Thud.

Suddenly the ball was bouncing to a new beat as his ears started to pick up on a song. His body reacting before his brain could. That’d been happening a lot lately. Body doing something without him even thinking about it. It was actually becoming pretty useful, as if his reflexes were getting better. Yet sometimes it felt like he had to really concentrate on things he wouldn’t normally have to.

When he finally acknowledged the song his hand was moving to, Matt drew his attention from the ball. He turned his head towards the door that it sounded like it was coming from. He grabbed the ball as it came back up and tucked it under his arm while his head bobbed lightly.

“I only think in the form of crunching numbers...In hotel rooms, collecting playchecks from lovers..” Matt whispered the song while his hand waited on the handle of the door. One did not walk in before the chorus if one could help.

“Get me outta my mind… and get you outta those clooothhees…. I’m a liner away from getting you into the mood…” Now!

Matt pushed open the door just as the song started to speed up. He wasn’t sure -what- he was going to wade into, but he felt that this entrance would do justice to just about any situation. He belted out, and with surprising pitch actually while stepping into the open room.

“Woah!

One night and one more time

Thanks for the memories

Even though they weren't so great

"He tastes like you only sweeter."

One night, (Oh!) yeah, (Oh!) and one more time

Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories

See, he tastes like you only sweeter."

Matt stopped the song there and beamed a smile into the room. It focused on that cute red head from the other day, but he scanned the rest of the area before he affirmed that she was the only one. He turned the wide smile down to her and gave a small wave. He was wearing a sleeveless red and white basketball shirt and some grey shorts. His shorts sagged some. One pocket filled with his wallet and phone, while the other held a half drunk water bottle.

“Nah...Matt. I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name though…Lotsa new people.” He looked over her wrapped hands and then up to the bag as it swayed about. “Boxing! I love boxing… Mind if I take a few hits?”

[Axelle Flint]

"Matt, right. Got it," she said as she popped to her feet and eyed him warily. The last person she's been around while training had been Lucas and that experiance still left a bad taste in her mouth. "I'm Axelle," she added since it would be rude to at least not give him a name. When he looked at her bag she reached out with her foot and eased the bags swing to a stop and watched it hang there for a moment. She wondered if he would listen to her if she told him to find another bag and decided it wouldn't hurt being honest.

"I think this bag is too heavy for you. If you want though there's another bag over there we can set up for you," she looked at his basketball. "There are gloves and hand wraps too." She added. So saying she tugged off her own gloves and set them aside in preparation to at least assist in preparation. She could at least make sure the bag was set up. Then she decided to ask the obvious question when she realized she was totally assuming things. "You're not like, super strong right?"

[Matt Davis]

Matt looked over her, studying her and her lack of a smile. Well… the entrance didn’t do well, or even set the tone. It was alright though, he was mainly coming in to see what was happening. He saw it.

“Too heavy?” Matt said with a hiked brow. He looked over the girl and then turned to watch the punching bag. He couldn’t remember a time he came across a bag that was too heavy, but he wasn’t one to ignore advice.

“Sure, I’ll set up my own bag. Don’t mind sharin’, but i know that you can really throw off someone’s rhythm when you hit the same bag.” He walked towards the bags and looked over his shoulder when he saw her moving to help.

“Super strong…? Well I’m pretty strong, I guess. Can bring down most people well, an’ was one of the toughest at my old school… though some’a the lineman had me.” He waved her down while moving towards the bags. “Y’don’ need to get up an’ help me if you don’t want to. Don’ feel obligated or nothin’.”

[Axelle Flint]

Axelle stared at him for a moment before a smile tugged at her lips and she chuckled. "Alright, you must be new," she allowed as she walked over to wear the bags were stored and grabbed one he would be able to use. Without even needing to try she picked the bag up and tossed it over her shoulder, standing there with her other hand on her hip.

"Sorry, maybe I should have been more specific," she allowed as she set the bag down and stepped away. "My bag is special and very heavy. If you had hit it the chances are high you'd have hurt yourself. I'm very, very strong," She told him in an amused voice as she stepped away from the bag. "Though you are right, I don't like sharing my bag." She chuckled as she walked over to it and leaned against it. She didn't put and additional pressure onto it and her weight wasn't affected by her strength. The bag hung still and straight as she leaned. "How long have you been boxing?" She asked.

[Matt Davis]

Matt’s eyes went wide as she hefted the bag up with such ease. His first thought was that it was a weird bag. Empty or stuffed with fluff or something? When she elaborated, however, a lot of that excitement and energy that he had walked in with had faded. His body grew tense and he looked away from her to one of the hooks where the bag would be hung up.

She was a mutant. And not the kind like him. Not simple or harmless. The kind that did real damage. Could break into a car or rip apart a building if they wanted to. She was the kind he normally tried to avoid. She suddenly became a lot less cute in his opinion. However, Matt wasn’t one to ignore someone quickly, let alone a woman, so when she spoke he turned his attention back to her.

“I-I don’t know. Maybe five years or something? You?” It was clear that something had switched in him as he gathered up the wraps and started to bind his hand.

[Axelle Flint]

Axelle wasn't surprised at the change in attitude. She always expected it. She was usually more surprise when people didn't act afraid of her. "5 for me too, ever since I manifested. Kept a car from falling on my dad. Took me to the hospital, needles broke on my arms. I'm pretty clumsy, my added durability keeps me from killing myself. At least I'm pretty sure," she shrugged. She walked over and pulled her gloves back on, a little disappointed that once again she was some sort of dangerous monster in the eyes of someone else. "Anyway you're welcome to stay but my music stays on," she said simply not feeling the need to justify it with "because I was here first." No matter how much she wanted to. She tapped the bag and moved around to the other side so she wouldn't have to see any of the looks on his face once she started.

About ten minutes later she came to be aware that her CD was skipping. "Damnit," she muttered as she tugged off her gloves and sat down in front of the machine. She took a deep breath and tried to get herself to focus Enough to press stop, but she was still too out of it from her work out and the skipping was irritating. She pressed the button too hard and it jammed....a lot. "Shit!" She swore with her arms quivering against her thighs. The noise had stopped but she wasn't in any position or condition to fix the problem. Ugh. Just her luck.

[Matt Davis]

“Oh…” Matt said hesitantly. “That’s cool. Saving your dad, you know. Don’t know about the durability thing..” So she was durable too. She could break into a bank and she wouldn’t have to worry about cops getting to her, he guessed. Sure there were probably down sides to the power, and hell he was a little curious, but he didn’t want to speak anymore than he had to.

Matt was able to put the bag up with ease, of course. He was normally the one who’d do it for people. He worked hard to be strong, and he fought for it. It wasn’t a gift… Though a small part of him was a little envious of the idea of being super strong. He was kicked out of the frigging football team because his ‘power’ made it ‘unfair’. He couldn’t do anything with it! At least with super strength it’d be worth it.

When he punched, however, he felt like he had a bit of that super strength. Matt’s form was impressive, and each jab -looked- powerful as it collided with the bag. Small huffs and grunts as he moved and beat the bag into submission. He knew how to fight and he could really kick the ass of anyone who’d stand in one spot and not move, aside from little sways from the force of an impact. Especially if they were hanging a little bit.

He wouldn’t speak up through the ten minutes. Her music was actually pretty good, if not a little bit one sided to Fallout boy. It was a good band, but no rap? Rap made the best workout music. If she wasn’t a dangerous mutant freak, he might even share some of his tunes with her. However it all stopped as soon as he heard the disk skip. It was crying, as if in pain. Something was wrong.

His fists stopped hitting against the bag and he stepped away, looking over to the CD player on the floor. He remained where he was while the girl moved to try and fix it. She’d fail. When she pressed her finger against the radio he heard a click. It sounded like a snapping bone to him, and he knew what’d mend what aled it.

Matt stepped forward and gave Axelle a shove out of the way before he bent down and grabbed a hold of the radio. His finger dug into the button and twisted, popping it up without a second of issue before he pulled out the CD.

[Axelle Flint]

Axelle as a point of fact did not like being pushed or shoved. It had less to do with high-handedness and brutality and more to do with the fact that it was GROSSLY unfair to her. Unless she wanted to risk seriously injuring someone she couldn't defend herself, only take the blows as they might come. She was tiny and tended to get jostled a lot in crowds, she disliked it intensely. So when giant of a jerk-face Matt shoved her away from her CD player her first reaction was a very colorful set of swear-words that she really had no business knowing, followed by "Listen here asshole - did you just fix my CD player?" She asked incredulously as he unstuck the button.

"How did you do that?" It was stuck, it would have taken her hours potentially to fix this back home if her father or Grandfather didn't take it away from her first...and they'd learned ages ago that she hated it when things were taken away from her so tended to only do it sparingly in times of great need.

[Matt Davis]

Matt’s eyes darted across the CD and in less than a second he knew it was fine. He sat it down beside of the player before he pressed his fingers between the line where the plastic parts met. His hand slid along until he felt a point where the fasteners held it together and he pried it apart with deft, strong fingers.

Matt didn’t answer her as she asked, and was completely unaware of the impressive lexicon of profanity she had masterfully woven together into one insult. He simply worked, opening the device up until he could see the shifting eye on the track that needed to be reset and cleaned off. When it was finally done he went back to work putting the device together again in complete silence.

[Axelle Flint]

"Look, I know you probably think I'm some sort of oafish Neanderthalic moron but an answer to my question would be nice. I can't even work that fast when I'm focused, so how did you do that?" She had stood to her feet and began to pace, gloves ending up on a chair near her bag, the tape on her hands suddenly confining and disgusting, she ripped it from her hands cleanly and with little trouble.

She sat down next to the asshole named Matt and glared at him.

[Matt Davis]

As she glared she may have noticed that blank stare was unmoving. His hands darted rapidly around the device, but sometimes the look didn’t even sink up with where his hands went. After a few more seconds, a total time of about a minute, the CD player was back inside. He grabbed the disk from the floor and sat it inside before fast forwarding to just before the song started to skip.

Matt blinked a few times, the first time in a while, before emotion started to come over him again. He turned and looked to Axelle, who was sitting oddly close, with a confused expression plastered onto his now expressive face. “...What? Did you say something?”

[Axelle Flint]

Glaring she was, and she did notice the disconnect between his eyes and his hands. She swore again and sighed, grumpily watching him finish before he turned a confused face towards her. "Yes I did actually, after you shoved me away and proceeded to use your meta-power to fix my CD player without asking," she snapped as she sighed again. "You should apologize, it's super rude to shove someone who can't shove you back," she pointed out testily. "I have enough issues keeping my balance without random jerks being violent to my person without warning," she added as she stood and habitually rubbed her hands against the back of her shorts.

Shoot she just had all sorts of shitty luck when it came to meeting people in the training rooms. So far the only good experience had been meeting Marcus, even if it had been on a day where she'd been feeling vulnerable and alone. She bent over and stopped the CD (way more gently this time as silence filled the room. "I'm not dangerous, FYI..." she said seemingly out of nowhere, deciding that perhaps if Matt was afraid she'd have to change that somehow otherwise she'd have to abandon her training and that wasn't an option she wanted to take currently. "I'm not, super scouts honor...except I'm not a scout so maybe ignore that, but seriously. I'm more or less safe...ish," she allowed as she plopped down next to him again.

"And you might say to yourself: 'But Axe you totally destroyed that statue downtown,' or 'I heard you threw Benji into the lake,' or even 'Didn't you throw a car over your head across the football field a few years ago?'," she went on in a nasally voice to simulte her detractors. "The answer of course would be yes, but the statue was an accident, Benji was a dick and I got detention for that ANYWAY and the last thing is part of my strength assesment. I've never actually hurt someone."

[Matt Davis]

Matt stared at the red head super mutant as she accused him of something that Matt had no recollection of. In fact, the last thing he could vividly remember was beating the hell out of a hanging bag. She was right, though. There was no other reason he’d be over here next to a working radio, he figured. He winced multiple times as she spoke. First when she said that he shoved her. Shoved her? In what world would he ever shove a woman! He silently cursed his damnablee powers. The second time was when he worded his mutant lineage. He sighed again, heavily. It quivered as it slipped between his lips.

“I-...I’m so sorry.” He said softly, under his breath as he looked down. What’re you looking at, Davis? Show some spine and decorum. Matt chastised himself before lifting his head up and looking her in the eye. He sat up more straight and his voice became more clear. “I’m really, very sorry. A-Axelle, right? When my-” He froze, unsure how to speak and losing his wits for a moment. “Sometimes… I just sort of… blank out and I don’t really know how to break from it or… not be a...what’d you say? Random violent jerk?”

When she started to go off on her tangent about all of the reasons she wasn’t dangerous, his brow knitted together. She was truly listing off reasons why she was dangerous and why Matt should be afraid of her. Though there was something about...her. Not her power, but about this girl that defused a lot of the fear that came with standing so close to something that could snap him faster than a gorilla.

Perhaps it was what she said earlier: When she mentioned saving her father. Or, more likely, it was that comment. He shoved her, and she -couldn’t- shove him back. As if she was restricted when, if she was truly super strong, nothing would be holding her back but her own moral rules but she spoke as if she was chained back by something more.

“I aint afraid of you…” He said, just as confidently as before.

[Axelle Flint]

Apologies usually went a long way with the redhead - especially if they were genuine. She also didn't have any reason to think that Matt was faking sincerity when apologizing for shoving her, he did look pretty aghast. She also felt bad for calling him a random violent jerk when he mentioned that his powers pretty much took him over. "Yeah well...okay sorry, you're not a random violent jerk, you didn't even hurt me, not like you could anyway...but theoretically, let’s just say that if you could have hurt me, you didn't," she elaborated. She was a bit surprised by his affirmation that he wasn't afraid of her and she opened her mouth to retort and closed it instead. She figured he was lying about that one. Then again, even if he wasn’t afraid of her he was at least wary. His attitude had totally changed when she’d pulled the bag down for him.

"Gotcha boss, sorry I implied," she said instead, hurt flashing across her face as she stood once more and habitually wiped her hands on the back of her shorts again. She didn’t want to show him - a stranger, how much her feelings were hurt. She reminded herself over and over in her head that this was the sort of thing that happened; she couldn’t always run into people who were completely okay with the fact that she could snap them in two without thinking about it. Her run of good luck had ended. Coming to that conclusion wasn’t easy but it was one she’d have to live with nonetheless.

She'd just leave him to it then as she reached out and turned the music back on, unwittingly demonstrating the extent of her control as the player whirred to life as if someone of normal strength had pressed the button rather than her. She walked back to her chair and sat down so she could wrap her hands again, meticulous in her focus as she wound the fragile tape around her hands. She wanted actual hand wraps but there was usually so much fabric left over it was impossible for her to fit her gloves over them. Despite her focus however, this was something she had done many, many times over the years and she was able to keep an ear open to the world around her, at least to the song which she had begun to hum to.