Matt shows Jessica a few tricks. (Backdated to Saturday 6/13/15)

[x-jessicajones.livejournal.com]

Matt's shoulder was bothering him slightly from his nocturnal hobby as he liked to put it, the armor he'd gotten from Clint helped, but 2x4 boards still packed a punch when the collided with body parts. He was lucky it wasn't more than just a few days old bruise. Still, he wasn't going to tell Jessica that when she requested that he meet her in the gym for powers training. No one at Xavier's knew what he did except for the ones who joined him. And Clint. Clint didn't count.
"You wanted to train me?" he said as he entered the gym and heard Jessica's heartbeat. Going to join her on the mats, he slipped his shoes off automatically, already dressed in workout clothes, including a tshirt with short sleeves to hide the bruise.

Jessica adjusted her own work out clothes, a tight, bright purple tank top that she'd bought with Rogue and a pair of well fitting, but somewhat loose sweatpants. Her hair was tied up in a bun, she didn't want it getting in the way.
"Yeah. I figured that since you're the go to guy for my students, you'd be perfect to help me out. Now, I've been training with Rogue for a while, a long while, but that's mostly given me a good deal of control and made me a grappler. I'd like to fine tune that a bit." She answered.

"The entire idea is to incapacitate," Matt pointed out, "Not play with them like a toy," you did what you needed to do, you did it as efficiently as possible and you ended it. You didn't let things linger, that wasn't reality. That was boxing. A sport. Or worse, it was wrestling. "Monet finally sees the point of learning self-defense. Now you have to work on Quentin," that could be a challenge.

"Monet talked to you? Really? Shows what I know. She and I keep missing each other for some reason." Jessica pointed out with a shrug before she sighed. "And you're right. Quire's being difficult and, as much as I hate to admit it, he reminds me of me. I tried telling him how good it can feel to help people, even if you have to occasionally get physical, or in his case, mental in order to do it. Maybe I just like to play hero? " She continued with a frown. "Still, I'd like for you to teach me. Sure, I could incapacitate a normal person with minimal damage, but I'm thinking about what would happen if I ran into someone as big and strong as me. Maybe even stronger. I'd need the skill advantage to win. And since you're the most skilled guy around..." Jessica trailed off, her thoughts moving to how she'd felt after Gladiator had handed her her ass.

"Not really," Matt replied dryly, "more like I tossed her around until she finally realized I could do that all day and she couldn't lay a hand on me no matter how invulnerable she was. Stalemate. So she should be more receptive towards learning technique now," he wrapped his hands and then took his place on the mat, "Can't promise that what I do will work for you, it's a very individual thing. But I can show you some basic things and build from there. Just because I have training doesn't mean I can teach it." Even with a lot of training.

Jessica stretched, loosening her body up for what was to come. Though she doubted Matt could actually hurt her, that wasn't the main concern.
'Time to put my training to the test. He's squishy, badass from what I hear, but squishy.' She thought as she took her place on the mat. "Alright, I'm ready." She stated.

Taking her through a routine set of moves, Matt was pleased to see that Jessica was a pretty quick study. "Alright," he said once she started getting the hang of things, "Let me put on pads and you can try again with more force," she would still need to temper how hard she was hitting, the pads were just standard ones, but made handling the impact easier.

Jessica nodded and watched as Matt put on the pads. She ran in place, psyching herself up to hit someone as squishy as him. She obviously was going to hold back, but it still scared her. She remembered when she'd broken her dad's favorite car growing up. She'd felt bad then, but she'd feel even worse if she broke Matt. Way worse. She watched as Matt finished putting on the pads and quickly got into position. She struck out with greater force than before, hoping that the pads would do their job.

‘Greater force’ didn’t mean ‘greatest force’ and that was a distinction that Matt was glad Jessica understood. It was probably actually pretty minimal for her, but he lacked super strength or invulnerability. Next time someone was handing out superpowers, he decided to ask for one or the other. “Yeah, like that,” Matt agreed, moving with the force of the blow and getting back in position, “Your form is good. Keep going, but you need someone who can take the force of your blows.”

"Thanks. Glad I didn't hurt you." Jessica replied. "Guess I could ask Rogue. Or maybe Wolverine." She answered.

“Or Monet,” Matt pointed out since she was learning self-defense as a beginner and a part of Gen X. “Lots of options,” just not him for anything harder than what they were doing. “I can supervise it, make sure it’s correct, if you need. But I don’t think you should try to hit any harder than you are.”

"Youre probably right. It gets harder to hold back when I use more force like that. This was good for me. Thanks." Jessica answered.

"Anytime,” Matt replied, “I’m more than happy to work with you on form and mechanics. Just bring another invulnerable person along for the hitting. Or I can teach you both and let you whack each other,” just not him. No thanks. He got hit enough with his other hobbies.

"You got it. Thanks, Matt. I really appreciate it. Maybe I'll convince Rogue to come down and you can watch us go a few rounds." She answered with a grin. "You up for an after work out snack? I don't know about you, but I'm starving. Come on, I'll whip you something up in the kitchen." She continued, wrapping her arm around Matt's shoulders as she pulled him toward the door.