Alex POV:
"Get up, and come at me again." The redheaded Russian declared.
One hand holding my aching gut, I lift myself up slowly with the other, only for Natasha to sweep it from under me, making me fall flat on my face.
"Oww- what was that for?" I complain at her, with her still looking down at me.
"Lesson two. Make sure you get up quickly, no matter if you're in pain or not. The time it takes for you to get up will always be the best time for your opponent to take advantage of your unbalanced form." She stated as if obvious.
"B-but this isn't like an actual life and death situation! Can't you cut me some slack?" I whine, now holding my nose that was starting to bleed.
She stomped on my face. (a/n I wish I were him)
Honestly, I should've known better. Asking Natasha Romanoff for mercy is like asking a tiger to go vegan. She's not even mad. This is just her Tuesday.
Okay, maybe I should stop complaining. What did I even expect from the shield agent training program...
"Lesson three. The best way to get stronger is to always believe that it's a life or death situation and treat it as such." She scoffed. "Now get up."
This time, I gritted my teeth and jumped up on my feet as fast as possible. I thought I could see her smirk in the corner of my vision, but I'm not sure.
She cracked her knuckles. I swear I heard my future crack too.My legs instinctively tried to walk me out of the room, but unfortunately, my pride was driving today.
"Now come at me. I see from your movements that you're experienced with fighting. Show me. And if you don't kill me, I'll kill you, so come at me with everything you've got." She huffed out, slowly starting to lose the little interest she had in me.
I can't let that happen. She's gonna be an important connection, plus she's hot as hell. I can't have her thinking I'm just another random recruit!
I rush towards her, using the fighting style that I've created over the past few months. Knowing that she'll dodge or block anyway, I go all in, sending in a flurry of fists, elbows and knees.
My fighting style is pretty simple. I just get up as close as possible against my opponent, give in to my animalistic instincts, and trade blows. Due to my high strength and durability score, as long as they're regular humans, I should be able to come out on top if we trade the same number of hits.
I don't really have a name for the fighting style, but the people I've sparred in the gym just call me the bear.
I send out a right hook, she ducks under. I follow up with a left uppercut, she dodges to the side, and taps the unprotected side of my head.
I kept my guard high, inching into her space. A powerful low kick. She easily just stepped out and back into range. I switched up, faked a jab, overextending my left shoulder, then exploded the pent-up force with a right elbow.
She weaved under like it was choreographed, slipping behind me as I spun out due to the miss, and tapped the small of my back.
"Your moves are too telegraphed," she muttered behind me. "I can read every attack a second before you throw it."
Thanks, yeah. That's totally something you say to a guy trying not to cry mid-fight.
"If this were a real situation, remember I would've been able to kill or grievously injure you instead of tapping you." she said, with her usual monotone voice, but I can pick up the fact that her breaths are heavier than normal. Maybe I'm better than she expected.
"You should focus on the fight- hmff!" I quip back, as instead of tapping, she sends an uppercut right into my chin, shutting me up.
My vision blurred for a second. Was that a bird? No, just another brain cell flying away.I mentally added that punch to the growing list of traumatic memories I'll be taking to therapy. If I survive long enough to get a therapist.
"And so should you," she huffs out, a little more worn out than before. "Your fighting style is too animalistic. It's got zero strategy, and you try to go hit for hit with the opponent. You've got to calculate your attacks and force your opponents into difficult positions!"
Okay. So brute force wasn't working. No surprise there.
But she mentioned strategy. Positioning. Traps. That's something I can do. I've fought against Pete enough times that I know how to corner a quick opponent.
Something clicks inside my head.
So I start shifting my angles, cutting her off, controlling space. Every jab becomes a nudge, every step a push. I'm not trying to hit her, I'm trying to herd her.
And slowly, step by step, I funnel her toward the wall.
I raise the intensity of your punches, slowly backing her towards the corner of the gym, all while she keeps tapping where I'm unprotected, and yapping.
Okay, maybe not yapping. All of her advice is really good.
"Your fighting style relies too much on trading hits. What are you going to do if instead of them hitting and you hitting them, they just hit you and you're unable to hit them, like this situation? You need a plan B." She scolds me, as she notices me not trying anything new, and only giving in to my animalistic instincts, and just throwing strike after strike.
"Plan B? Like this?" I shout, almost sure of my victory, now that I've backed her into a corner while she was talking.
"Nice try, but too obvious. You aren't fooling anybody with good spatial awareness." She says, as she huffs, and jumps straight up, kicks off the wall behind her, and lands back around the middle of the gym before I could react.
I grit my teeth. Okay, if corner doesn't work, where does?
Another puzzle piece clicks in my head, remembering how she just got out of that situation.
The air! She cant dodge midair!
I keep trying to hit her, twisting my body to rip a destructive low kick. She easily jumps above it, and taps my chest while I'm unbalanced from the kick.
This is my chance!
I carry my spinning momentum from the low kick, and extend my arm out, slamming it towards her defenceless form. On second thought, maybe this might have been too harsh-
Her body folded like water around the momentum. I felt the impact hit, but not land. It was like punching water.
The moment she made contact with my arm, her weight shifted- she wanted the force, redirected it like a master gymnast.
Now that I think about it, she probably was one.
Instead of taking the brunt force, she transferred the momentum of the strike into herself by pushing off my arm, getting sent flying, but with zero injury.
Okay, and she does like 3 flips in the air and lands safely on her feet. Its been like 15 minutes- Can I forfeit now?
Oh right! Lesson two! The best time to chain the combo is when the opponent is recovering!
I rush her as fast as I can, and knowing that she could probably dodge or parry most of my strikes, I reach to grab her wrist, so that I could do the 'pewny god' combo that Hulk hit Loki with in Avengers 1.
I grab her wrist, lift it up, and-
Her eyes widened slightly—just for a second. I felt a spark of triumph. I planted my feet and twisted my hips, channelling everything into the slam.
But something shifted. Her legs wrapped tight around my arms like a snake, her arms coiled around my wrists- then a twist. A pull.
*POP*
huh?
A sudden pain jolts through my shoulder.
I black out.
(a/n I don't actually know how to hit an armbar, so I just guessed. I also just edited chapters 1-4, completely rewriting 3, 4, and 9 since as most readers who read it before the rewrite know, the first meeting with peter was actually so ass. its a lot better now.)