Matt and Renee: Gymnastics (uberbackdated)

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Matt and Renee meet in the gym for mutual gymnastics screwing around. The conversation goes far afield, including powers, religion and future plans.

Arriving at the gym, Matt spent a while on the mats just warming up. He hadn't been in a while thanks to summer school, withdrawal, sort of a quasi-depression from the withdrawal and general suckitude. The side effects of coming off ecstasy hadn't been that severe since he hadn't been on it long, but he noticed them now that he was getting through the worst of it. He wasn't 'better' at least not yet, but he was getting there and this felt like a step in the right direction.

Finally feeling limber, he stood and bent backwards into a backbend, then kicked over easily so that he was standing again. Just some nice easy floor work. He preferred the bars, but this was a good place to start, especially without a spotter.

First things first, Renee had to fine something gym-appropriate to wear. It had been so long since she'd been in a gym on purpose, but she managed to find a pair of shorts that should allow her a full range of movement. After that, she left for the gym at not quite a jog. The promise of someone to spot her, even to just work out with who knew what they were doing, was the most exciting thing to happen since she'd gotten to the mansion.

She caught Matt as his feet were coming back over to the floor and clapped a little as she approached, partly to let him know he was there and partly because, well, not a lot of people could kick over forward out of a backbend. "Hi!"

"Hey," he replied, bending down and carefully retrieving his sunglasses to slip them on. Matt knew his eyes bothered people so he tended to keep them covered. "Matt Murdock. You're Renee? I don't recognize you, so I assume so," he offered her his hand. It saved him having to find her later. The gymnasium was large and sound tended to dissipate without hitting things, which was a problem for him finding his way, but she was close enough that he got the jist of her shape at least.

She blinked a little at the sight of his eyes--that looked like it hurt--but shook it off immediately. "Yeah, sorry. Renee Nguyen." She took his hand for a shake while her eyes took in the rest of the gym. "This is really nice. We can just come in here whenever?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Matt agreed. "The general rule is 'don't be stupid' which, I think means don't come work the uneven bars or similar stuff at 2am with no spotter," he shrugged, "I'm pretty okay with that." 2am was for sleeping or eating junkfood while watching boxing. Not gymnastics.

"Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet." She dropped down to the mat with a graceless thud and started stretching. How did she get so tight so fast? "What if I bring my own spotters? I don't think they'd let me fall even if I tried. Not, uh, that I'd try. Or that I'd do this at 2am." Probably. Sometimes a girl couldn't sleep.

"Uh..." It took Matt a moment to figure out what she meant. "wait. You said you had glowy things with you or something with your powers?" He had no idea, he couldn't see them. "Are they tangible?" He wasn't registering anything else with a heartbeat or out of the ordinary with his sonar.

"Oh, totally tangible. You wanna s--err, wanna check it out?" Auuugh, please don't hate her. She wasn't able to call up many friends here but right now she only needed one and that didn't take much effort at all. A translucent green humanoid rose out of the floor beside her. "I dunno what it'll feel like to you, but I'll keep him over here till you say otherwise."

"Uh, sure?" Matt had no idea what these things were, but his eyebrows rose over his sunglasses when a vaguely humanoid shape more or less appeared. Going over to get his cane, Matt unfolded it and carefully poked at the thing. This was what canes were for. Yep. Definitely. Cautiously, he crept closer, tongue clicking softly in his mouth to create more sound waves in the large space. Tentatively, he poked it with a hand. It was solid. Cool to the touch though. "Weird...."

Renee couldn't help smiling at his tentative approach. She'd gotten so used to having her friends around that it didn't even occur to her that people could be anything other than ok with it or terrified. The friend, for its part, didn't react to the poking. "They are pretty out there, but I got used to them before too long. They're always there for me when I need them, though, so they might make good spotters."

"Huh," part of Matt's semi-caution was because mutant powers sometimes worked in wonky ways, but also because he couldn't see what he was touching really. "That works pretty well then. Maybe you should make sure they spot you before you do it alone? If they missed, that'd be bad," and he didn't think it'd be intentionally, but if Renee controlled them and she was concentrating on a move, then they might not respond or something. "Anyways, what do you want to do?"

"Yeah. They've caught me on stuff before, but never as spotters, more as like, hey, if you fall here you'll get zapped to a crisp kind of situations. Better safe than crispy." She leaned back into one more deep backbend while she debated. "I always liked to start on the beam. That and vault were always my best events but it's been so long..." She shrugged a little. The idea of going back to the vault intimidated her. "Beam's a good place to start." Plus this way if he wanted the floor, she'd be out of his way.

"I like that. 'Better safe than crispy.' Good advice," Matt nodded. The beam wasn't something he did too often since it wasn't really part of what guys did in gymnastics nor the vault, though that was because his coaches were always so worried about the blind kid running at it. Even with a spotter to tell him when to jump, they weren't too keen on him using it. Once he was on the horse though he did alright. "We can do beam," he agreed. "I'll spot. Or attempt to not break my neck, whichever."

"It hasn't steered me wrong yet." She shrugged a little and dismissed her friend. If Matt was going to spot, she wouldn't need him around. "Thanks! Don't let me go too long, though, or we'll seriously spend the entire time on this." Or at least as long as she could go before her lack of training made her sloppy and out of breath. She made her way to the beam and moved the springboard to the side, then stepped back and considered her approach. "Basic thief mount." Renee nodded, squared her shoulders and ran forward, jumping up and floating her legs over the beam, holding herself up on her arms and working to straighten her back. Her coach had always called it a lazy mount, but she really only liked it for the name.

Matt thought it interesting that she didn't seem bothered by being spotted by a blind guy, but if she wasn't, he wasn't. "Hold a sec," he requested, grabbing the portable radio and bring it over before turning it on to a classic rock station. Nothing too loud or anything, but it was enough to give him some more sound to work with without creating it himself. Sound waves dissipated quickly in a large gym like this. "Okay, cool."

"OK." Her arms were in good enough shape that she could literally hold in position for a decent amount of time, a fact that surprised her since most of the working out she did these days was entirely focused on her legs. "Oh, nice." She waited a second longer then pulled herself up and did a quarter turn, tucked one leg in and got a foot on the beam. She'd wait until he was at least closer before trying to stand.

He hadn't actually thought that she would just wait in that position, but it worked. "Alrighty," Matt agreed, "Do whatever. Just be prepared to fall."

"Prepared to fall? Pssssssh." She was never really prepared to fall. It happened more often than she'd like to admit, but that didn't mean she was ever really prepared for it. She lifted herself up and got both feet on the beam, then took a deep breath and considered what to do. "Starting simple. Front walkover." Renee arched her back, lifted her arms, dropped her hands and lifted her legs. Her feet came up and over and landed on the beam and, after a moment's pause, she lifted herself up to standing. Her abs and back felt every second of it, and it felt great. "See, no falling." Yet.

"Yet," Matt agreed, amused. "Anyways, walkovers are easy. Do a back walkover, those are harder," and slightly more fun in his opinion. It seemed a little silly to him that the gymnastics events were so segregated. He'd done uneven bars even though it was a 'girls' apparatus and loved it.

"I know they're easy, that's why I did it." She thought about making a playful face at him but didn't; it'd be lost on him. "OK. Here goes." She slowly dropped into a backbend, which didn't go nearly as awkwardly as she expected, then kicked her feet up and brought them over her head. Feeling adventurous, she stopped in a split at the top for a moment, then brought them back down to the beam. "That felt really good."

"Good," Matt grinned as she moved. "Yeah, I feel better when I do stuff like this. Or go outside. Being inside in my room leads to bad things. Of course, I don't gave a roommate or suitemates, which is part of it."

Renee stood back up and spun till she was facing the other end of the beam. "It helps, like, moving with a reason. It's one thing to run around because you don't know what else to do, but doing it and thinking about it is something completely different. Handstand, full turn." She bent and quickly lifted her legs, starting to feel more confident. "How'd you score your own room? Sounds like it could only lead to good things to me." She waited until she'd finished speaking to start the turn away from him.

"Powers," Matt explained, "My room is soundproofed and air scrubbed so it's easy on my powers. I had two suitemates until they graduated and moved to the grad suites though. Aren't any other high school aged guys," which also sucked in some ways, but it meant no competition for the girls, which was nice. He liked Sue. "And watch your core. You're wobbling."

"Air scrubbed? For smells and things? No offense, but that's got to suck, like, to be assaulted by stuff like that all day just walking around living your life." She took a deep breath and tucked her tailbone, straightening her legs and focusing on keeping her core solid. If she could make it fifteen seconds... "Grrrr..."

"Yeah, it can," Matt agreed. He had much better powers control now than he had when he first arrived though. "No one realized I was a mutant when my powers manifested so they prescribed me painkillers and stuff to combat the migraines I'd get. Nothing worked though," which made sense now. "I still get them sometimes, but they're not nearly as bad as they were or last as long," thank goodness. And having his room to retreat to helped a lot, too.

Fourteen... fifteen, ugh. She unceremoniously dropped down into a split sit on the beam. "Is that not a thing doctors check for? If they can't find a reason you're not getting better, they don't check to see if maybe you're a mutant?" She hadn't told a soul about her friends, so she had no idea how the rest of the mutant world conducted itself, really, unless they made it on the news. This was all educational to her.

Matt shrugged, "They thought it had to do with my eyes. And y'know, no insurance and all that, gets expensive," he had definitely not grown up as a 'have.' "One person says, 'it must be his blindness' and it's cheaper to agree. What about you? I mean, how'd your powers manifest?"

"Yeah, that I can understand." At least, she kind of understood. Money had never been an issue for her but she could understand how it'd be hard to not have it, theoretically. "The first time I saw my friends, I was out for a run and I tried to make a jump across some rails," she said as she bent one leg to rest her foot on the beam, laying her other leg straight along it, "and I didn't gauge it right and I probably would've fallen and turned into bacon but they popped up and caught me. But... I dunno. I feel like they were around before then, I just couldn't see them. Valdez." She lifted the bent leg off the beam and pushed up with the other. Please please please...

It was sort of weird that she referred to the things as her friends, but whatever. That wasn't a big deal. "Probably kinda nice that they look out for you," Matt replied. "And I'll catch you if you fall." Hopefully. Well, he intended to anyways.

"Nnnn..." She got her legs up but her other hand missed the beam as she came down into her handstand, and she definitely wasn't prepared for a one-armed handstand. "Ahhh!"

Screaming was good. It meant that Renee lit up brightly in Matt's mind as she toppled and he was able to catch her without a problem. "Maybe try that next time," he suggested, as she ended up in his arms with an 'oof.' Solid girl, definite gymnasts build. "You okay?"

A sigh of relief whooshed out of Renee as she felt solid arms catching her. It wasn't that she didn't trust the blind guy to catch her, it was just that she wasn't used to having anyone but a friend there to catch her fall. Speaking of which... She felt a familiar presence and saw, as she opened her eyes, that one of them had appeared to catch her, and it was pretty much sharing physical space with Matt. "I'm fine, but are you... sorry if that's weird. Sometimes they just do that."

Matt hadn't entirely registered the sort of uncomfortable tingly sensation until it was gone, but once it was, eeeeuch. "That was....bizarre," Matt agreed as he let her down. "Your uh, friend?" he asked, making sure he understood what it was. Weird.

"Yeah, sorry." She gave the spirit the kind of glare normally reserved for meddling parents and it dissolved back into the ground. It didn't care, it had no shame. It didn't know from awkward. "It won't do anything to you or anything."

Matt shrugged, "Stuff happens," he replied. "Maybe it creeps people out or whatever, but I can't see them. We had ghosts once. That was interesting," and more than a little creepy. "Wanna get back on the beam or head over to the bars?"

Another, less audible sigh of relief. He wasn't totally weirded out. Cool. "Like, ghosts ghosts? Someone here has a power with ghosts, or is this place just haunted?" She shrugged a little. "I'm ready for a little bit of a breather if you want to take a turn on something."

"Magic went wonky," Matt explained, "And yes, magic and mutant powers. You learn to accept it. Are you religious?" For him, being Catholic actually made some things easier to accept. Faith was important. "Sure, I can mess around for a while," he smiled at her, then grabbed the radio and headed over to the high bar.

"Magic." Somehow she had an easier time accepting the idea of mutant powers that made people fly and bend metal than she did magic. "Not really. My family's Catholic but I only went till I got old enough to say no." She followed him toward the high bar. "Is the magic part of somebody's power or something?"

"Yeah. I don't really understand it," he couldn't see it, which probably was a factor, "I just sort of accept it and take it on faith. I'm Catholic too," he climbed the little step ladder to grip the high bar, then waited a moment until Renee moved it before pulling himself up and starting to swing, gaining momentum and then stopping in a handstand on top before launching into a series of complicated twists and turns.

"My grandfather would freak out if he heard people were doing magic here. That's totally devil worshiping stuff to him." To hear that Matt could take it on faith surprised her. Her parents' faith had been somewhat perfunctory but still very devoted; Chien's was exceptionally deep. She knew not everyone felt that way, but to see someone so easily accepting something like that... pretty wild. Pretty cool. As was Matt's performance on the bar. "Holy crap."

How was accepting magic any different than accepting that Jesus was the son of God? There was no proof that he knew of and he had no proof of magic either, but he had experienced both in their own ways. "How?" Matt asked, "I'm not aware of any devil worship. Isn't magic and mysticism all tied together?" Talking while on the bar made it substantially more difficult.


"How what? How is it devil worship? I dunno. Everything that's not straight from the mouth of Mother Church is devil worship to him." She shrugged, feeling a little uncomfortable, but Matt didn't seem like the type to get offended about someone else's opinions. "He thought my friends were demons. I think that's what made him finally decide to kick me out."

Attempting a twist, Matt lost his grip and hit the mats with a solid thunk. Thankfully, it was merely painful and not actually required more than a moments rest. "Ow," he commented, laying on the mat and catching his breath, "Sounds like he forgot the 'judge not' bit. Lots of people forget that. I don't get it, seems pretty straightforward to me."

"Oh shit!" Renee rushed forward to where Matt had fallen. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea you were going to do that or I'd've gotten here faster. Are you OK?" She bit her lip and crossed her fingers. Please don't be hurt! "Yeah, he was never very good at that part. He was a pro at holier than thou."

"I'm fine," Matt assured Renee with a smile before getting up and stretching. Sometimes in gymnastics you fell and had to just get up and start again, "Sounds like a real winner," he commented. "The church I went to growing up wasn't big on judging people. Then again, it was in Hell's Kitchen. Hard to be too judgmental when everyone's down on their luck and got problems, you know?"

"Phew." She was visibly relieved, but also, well, impressed. His other sense must be insanely good to even let him attempt stuff like that. "Yeah, he was a real champ." If she wanted to be a good person she'd try harder not to judge Chien, but where he was concerned she didn't care so much. "Yeah, that's bound to make things different. My grandfather loved to remind me that he worked for everything he had, but he had a lot."

Matt snorted. He didn't have much sympathy for that sort of thing. "My Dad worked hard, pulled double shifts at the docks and everything. We had nothing. It ain't just about how hard you work, but a lot more than that," he used the little ladder to get back up on the high bar, "That's why it's important to remember those that got you where you are and gave you opportunities." He was definitely grateful.

Renee nodded a little. "I don't think he really felt like anyone ever helped him, so he didn't see why he should have to help anyone else. Even family." She sighed. She wanted to be grateful to Chien, but he made it extremely difficult. "You want me to ready a friend in case that happens again?"

Well, neither of them could change how he felt or his perspective on things. "Sure," Matt agreed, unsure if one of Renee's friends would actually catch him or not. Well, he had fallen once already and he had fallen plenty of times before this, so whatever. He could always fall again. "So what about you? I mean, what do you want to do?"

She summoned a friend up out of the floor to have on standby. She always felt a little better with one of them around regardless. "How do you mean?"

"With, I dunno. Life," Matt replied, "Or now. Or whatever." He was flexible. The question was open-ended.

It was, which was part of what left Renee stumped. "Uh. I dunno. Haven't really thought about it?" She flopped down on to the mat and propped herself up on her elbows, watching him. "I guess graduate from here? I never really saw myself in college." Which probably meant a future of flipping burgers, but oh well. Or kind of oh well. "You?"

"College," Matt replied, "my dad really wanted me go to, you know? But I have no idea where or what I want to major in and I've got to apply this semester. So it's kinda insane. I've been asking everyone for suggestions, but no one else seems to have any ideas, really," it wasn't even because he was blind, it was just that they hadn't really considered college for themselves. "I think I'm just going to do 'undecided' at first."

"Well," Renee pursed her lips and tapped her toes together, "isn't college supposed to have a point? Undecided makes sense but like, what do you want to do after? Not gonna stay here and fight crime?" It kind of amazed her that that was a viable career choice now.

Dismounting, Matt didn't reply until he caught his breath a little. "Well, you can't graduate without a major. So you can't stay undecided. But you can start that way and then decide later," which was definitely looking like a good idea. "Who says they'd let me fight crime? I'm blind and it's not like I shoot lasers from my eyes. Doubt they'd want me."

"That makes sense. I haven't really thought about college at all." She stood up when he dismounted. "Maybe not pounding the pavement but maybe there's something else you could do. Work out of, what's it called, the brownstone or whatever?" She was still learning, slowly, what all the divisions here meant.

Matt had no idea what the brownstone did. It was all kinda confusing like that in some ways, "They don't throw people out of here when they graduate," he replied, "and you don't have to work for them or anything. You can go to school and live here, whatever. So it's pretty awesome. That's what I'll do at first, I think. I always thought that once I graduated high school that'd be it, I'd be on my own. Kinda nice that it's not the case."

"Yeah, I noticed there are people of every age in here, it seems like. Or every age for a given value of every age." There were people her age, close to, and then people in the nebulous 'old enough to be a teacher' category, but then there were people like Kyle who didn't seem to fit. "I can't see myself wanting to leave here when I graduate so I guess I'll probably try school. I dunno if I'm the crime stopping type."

Matt snickered at the math reference. He understood it, which he considered a plus, math was not his best subject. "Yeah, I think a lot of people come here when they're our age and then don't leave, which kinda makes sense and kinda doesn't, but that's how we ended up with all the different organizations and stuff. They created them for jobs and whatever. Why wouldn't you leave though? I assume I will, at least for college." Since he couldn't drive (and after his one time behind the wheel he had no desire to fight that), he assumed he'd go live on campus where ever he went to school, assuming he could control his powers well enough to do that without soundproofing.

"I dunno where I'd go," she replied with a shrug. "I mean, I guess I'm kinda lucky because I can just walk out of here and nobody knows I'm a mutant or anything, but I like being a mutant and I want to be able to do something with that, you know? But I can't go to college for mutant studies or whatever." She paused for a second, considering. "Or can you?"

Matt shrugged, "Probably," he replied, it seemed like you could major in anything in college, "I dunno which schools have that, but I'm sure they do somewhere."

"I bet somebody here knows. Or if they don't have it maybe I can just do it here or something." Hopefully they didn't make a four year degree a prerequisite for fighting crime. She didn't think they did, though. "It's years away anyway. This is pretty much the most I've thought about it ever."

Okay, enough serious talk. "More beam?" Matt suggested to her, "Our something else?"

"I'm always down for more beam." Renee paused. "Wait, that doesn't sound like I meant it. Pretend that doesn't sound pervy." She laughed, though, and headed back to move the springboard over.