Laura & Wade | Saturday Afternoon

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Laura meets Wade in the weight room. Sparring happens.


From time to time, Laura had what you could call a normal day. No emergency, no special case to work with X-Factor, no drama with the green haired roommate (yet), no adult giving her a bad time. Laura had to accept such times were actually pretty damn boring. The solution? Kicking the crap out of a sandbag that looked like was already pleading for the girl to stop inflicting the unnecessary punishment it was being subjected to. Truth to be told, the girl as interested on seeing if she could break it open without her claws.

Alternating some punches with the kicks, she was even humming a silly tune as she passed the time.

Wade walked into the gym and paused - he knew that song. He knew it well.

So we waited for the chorus to come around to the beginning again and then joined in. "It's a small world, after all!" He had no idea who was singing it, but considering the echo of the punching bag, it was probably someone with anger management issues. Excellent. "What'd Harvey there ever do to you? I'm pretty sure it couldn't have been bad enough to deserve you wailing on him like that."

"Huh?"

Laura turned away from the bag, a fine coat of sweat over her -she had been kicking it for hours at least, and looked at the man with a slight tilt on her head. New person, apparently. But hey, the man had asked a question. "Harvey here", said as she patted the sand bag with a small smile. "Doesn't know how to treat a lady. I'm all riled up and in need to some exercise and all he does is stand there in silence."

"Maybe he's being a gentleman," Wade pointed out, reaching over to pat poor Harvey. "Or maybe it's that he has no arms and legs and, thus, is unable to satisfy your particular urges."

Cue the evil smile.

Oh, urges; Laura had urges. All kinds of urges. Some were best suited for the gym, some...not.

"Gentlemen are the worst sparring partners. Oh em gee, I wouldn't hit a girl!" She then did a quick turn, leg going up, and kicked Harvey -who was totally christened by now- again, making its hinges squeak and complain at the treatment. "So, are you here just to stare at me or you want to get down to some action? Because, you know, I have urges."

She also looked like she was maybe twelve so far as Wade was concerned, but he could spar with her, if she wanted. He'd been planning on running, so he only had three knives on him. "Hang on," he said, pulling the one from the small of his back out. He unhooked Selma from his belt and then knelt to get the one from his ankle. Standing, he walked over and laid all three on a bench. "Now I'm ready." Moving into the center of the gym, he spread his arms. "Let's see what you've got."

She was totally twenty, and had the boobs to prove it! Then again, it helped if your sparring partner wasn't trying to grope you in the middle of the struggle.

"Hey, we could totally have a knife fight later, if you want", said with a slight smile as she looked at the three blades Wade had just removed from him. What was he thinking on doing before finding her? "Although it would be messy if you aren't one of those that heal their wounds." Still, she wouldn't use her claws on an 'unnarmed' fight. Standing on front of him, Laura took a semi-crouching position, silently inspecting the man for openings...which was sort of a stupid thing to do considering he was offering a bit opening right there with his arms extended. She sort of hated when guys felt they could toy with her.

"So, any conditions? Can't the guy go first at least once?"

"Me and the healing factor," Wade said, holding one hand up and crossing his fingers. "We're like this." He shook his fingers for emphasis, then grinned. "And I could go first, if you wanted, but since neither of us really knows what the other can do, we should start out slow and then see where we get. So - give me your best shot." He had over thirty years worth of experience to draw from and... yeah. She still looked like she was twelve.

"Oh, good! It's just a pain when they are worried about breaking bones and the like." It still wasn't nice, to break a bone, but if you could heal, the whole thing was sort of in perspective.

So Laura just nodded, and then charged in, right at Wade without stopping when she was way too close to actually try to hit him; Laura just ducked down, hands on the mat as her body twisted, sending a kick with her feet together right at Wade's chin.

It was little things, the shift of muscle, the flick of eyes, the tell-tale forward momentum - Wade wasn't entirely sure what the little hellcat might intend, but he knew it involved taking him down with something meant to be brutal. Instead, he stepped to the left and swept his right arm up, hooking it around Laura's ankles and locking them in the crux of his elbow as he moved backward by several feet in an effort to get her hands out from under her.

Okay, so he had reflexes. Good! It would have not done if he had gotten his jaw broken and knocked unconscious. She wasn't counting on him having such good reflexes though. Well, her bad. The moment Wade tried to pull her out, she knew she would have a hard time getting her feet free from the grasp of the man. So she let him pull her, using the momentum of both her run and his movement to curl over herself, abs marking on her stomach as she raised, making weight the man's arm as she used those seconds she had on the air to aim a punch in the middle of his face.

Wade dropped her before her fist came anywhere near his face and stepped back again, out of range of her feet as well as her arms. "Not bad," he said, tipping his head, watching her carefully. It was kind of fun, if he was being honest. She needed more training, definitely, but she had the innate strength and speed to be really good if she worked at it.

The moment he let go of her, Laura turned over herself on the air, pretty much like cats did, falling on her fours gracefully. She had a smile on her face when she looked up at Wade. It was fun, all in all. "Not bad yourself", answered as she took a couple of steps to place herself in front of him. "What now?" She totally wanted to see what he could do, even if it meant getting her ass handled to her in the end.

"Let's see how quick you are," Wade said, going at her with a fast, controlled series of hits to see how many she could block. None of them were meant to hit vital areas and certainly none were aimed at her face.

She was quick, alright. And she could tell he was pulling his punches, quite literally in this case. So she dodged, and she dodged nearly all of them. He was good at throwing punches, controlled or not. There was something that always transpired in the way people fought that Laura could see, almost measure; she wasn't aware of how experienced fighters could read their opponents, but she was doing something along those lines, just as Wade was reading her.

After some punching, though, she started to punch back, mimicking his style and measuring her hits. In a way, if felt like dancing, only that if one of them tried to change the tempo the other would end with a broken nose.

Again, those minute details came through and Wade adjusted to blocking while still throwing punches as their speed increased. Suddenly, he swept her arms to the side with one of his and gripped both wrists in one hand, turning her around so she was facing away from him, some distance still between their bodies. "Wait," he said, wanting to stall any of her knee-jerk reactions to the move he'd just pulled. "Tell me how you'd get out of this if I hadn't stopped you."

Laura cocked her head to a side, considering his question. "Well", said as she smiled a little -not that he could see-. "I would have to ruin my shoes." Although that wasn't an alternative, if she was putting it like that. Instead, Laura moved quickly to a side, forcing contact between Wade's arm and her shoulder, and doing a judo throw; she hoped the movement was fast enough so he didn't have to let go of her hands before he was midair and going down.

Wade went with the movement, keeping a hold on her wrists even as he went over her shoulder and tucked his knees to roll. He yanked hard, ensuring she came with him, and then continued the forward momentum so she wound up beneath him, wrists pinned to the floor. "Your shoes," he said, looking down, "Don't seem very ruined." Then he quirked an eyebrow. "No shots to the balls, alright? You're feisty and I think it's cute, but no man likes being kneed and I won't spar with somebody who does it if it's not an absolute last resort, got it?"

"That's because I didn't do what I wanted to do, and you don't have to regrow some rather sensible parts of your anatomy as a result." She gave him a big smile. "Be glad, dude. If you hadn't said that I would have land a heavy strike on the jewels." But now she was trapped, in a way. Did he call her feisty? She would show him feisty. Laura curled over herself quickly, knees all the way up to her chin before kicking up, hard, right on Wade's chest. She didn't want to break his ribs, but leave him without air, and hopefully away from her.

Shifting to give her room to move her legs meant Wade had plenty of time to figure out what her plan was. From there, it was really pretty simple to avoid the kick - he just rolled to the side at the last second, still holding her wrists. A moment later and he was up, standing near the edge of the mat. "Tone it down, kid. Sparring's meant to be fun, not vicious."

"What, can a girl throw a tantrum now?" She was in no mood for that though. Too bad. "Okay, look, I'm pretty lost about how to get my hands free without a) being vicious, b) cutting your hands of and c) I just made this one up." Laura stood quickly, rubbing her wrists for a moment. Okay, he had bested her, no big surprise there. "So, how do you free yourself in these cases, teach?"

"If you'd stayed where you were instead of throwing me," Wade said, grinning, "I could've shown you. Demonstration usually works better for me - I'm a monkey-see, monkey-do kinda guy. But look, somebody's got you like that from behind, stomp on their foot and jerk your own hands down as hard as you can - you're strong enough that, so long as they're not powered - or not expecting it - you can get yourself free and then deliver a massive kick to their kidneys or something."

Laura pointed a finger a him, a little grin on her lips. "That's vicious, unless you are indestructible plus of the healing kind, then I would have been...screwed." Then she wouldn't want to fight Wade any time soon. Maybe it was because they had taken some distance than Laura gave him a longer look. "So...who were you again?"

"Not indestructible, just willing to take a hit in the name of education," Wade said, shrugging. "You wouldn't have been screwed - you're good at thinking on the fly. That's a huge part of learning self-defense and martial arts in general. Learn the techniques, get the muscle-memory down, and then improvise so your opponents can't guess what your next move's going to be. "I'm Wade, I got here about a week ago. And just so we're clear, pretty much the only thing that I think's vicious, personally, is a knee, foot, elbow, or other appendage to the balls. Steer clear of that and we're good."

Okay, he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Good. Kind of. Off, there was something off about him, but whatever, there was certainly something off about everyone on the mansion. "Wade, I'm Laura. I guess your balls will be respected on later sparring sessions." She would try, at least. "What brings you to the mansion, anyway?", asked as she sat on the mat and started to stretch. "The weather isn't that lovely this time of the year."

"I wanted a change of scenery," Wade said, shrugging. "What're you here for?"

Laura was facing at her foot when Wade asked, and her gaze became fixed there. "My father...kind of discovered I was alive. Funny how it works, right? One moment he's an absent figure, then he's there at the doorstep and my mom just tells me all the things I never knew about myself, and now I'm here, training. And now he's gone again." Laura shrugged, a bit bothered by the theme, but she just looked up and made a face at Wade. "So yeah, I wanted a change of scenery."

"No offense, kid, but your dad sounds like a dick," Wade said, frowning. He couldn't imagine discovering he had some kind of progeny, picking said progeny up, and then ditching the progeny whenever he felt like it. But then, there was a reason Wade didn't have progeny. "Sorry he bailed on you - but hey. If you have to have a change of scenery, this place isn't bad."

"He had his reasons to leave, I guess." She had had to believe that no matter what in order to keep a straight face the days after Logan left. "His life isn't particularly easy, and he really didn't have much to do with me. Not that he would have cared any more, though." She stood up, and gave Wade a small smile. "It's a good place, here. Not perfect, but good enough. I hope you have a nice time here."

Wade had very strong ideas on how you dealt with your offspring and whoever her father was, the mercenary was pretty damn sure he needed to be punched in the face a few times. "Yeah, I think I will." She looked kind of sad. It was in the set of her shoulders, not her face, and so he tossed out an offer. "You wanna spar some more, let me know. It's not like I've got anything in particular going on and I'm always happy to help with self-defense. It's pretty much the one thing I'm good at."

He would probably break a hand after some punching at Logan, but hey, healing factor. Laura nodded, tossing some of the bad mood away. "Alright, but this time no tricky grabs unless you want to teach me something very specific, eh?" She wanted to ask him about the knives, but perhaps it was better to ask Vanessa about that. "Nothing says welcome better than a good sparring match, after all."