2nd Transformation . spam :: gym

[permutates]

[ Instead of asking the network, she goes to the gym herself, wanting to see if there's any likely teachers, or people who are worth watching. (Raven can learn a lot from watching, she's found.)

So she ventures into the gym, blue-skinned, dressed in a tank top and loose sweatpants, and she sees the balance beam.

She part-remembers being a child, stepping out into a playground and playing along one. She always had the best balance. And she thinks of what Azazel has been teaching her, and she wonders...

She hops up onto it, a smooth movement, and extends her arms, testing her balance one way or another. She seems steady, so she dashes from one end to the other, every footstep sure. She tips backwards, then, folds until she's standing on her hands. It's hard to keep her grip, exactly; she shifts her fingers and stretches her legs out, a split, one forward, one backward. Rolls onto the forward one, moving herself back to her feet. And she does the whole movement again, quicker this time.

It's easy.

Part of her wants to laugh with the thrill of it, with realizing how innate her own physical abilities are. How graceful she is when she's not pretending to be someone else.

She balances on the end, debating attempting some sort of flip off of it. ]

Comments

[tolaywaste]

[Alex spends a hell of a lot of the time in the gym. It's less vanity and more a way to burn off anger. Which is why he's been in here more, lately.]

[Today, he walks in absorbed in thought, gets halfway to the treadmill, sees Raven, and stops.]

[Oh.]

[He hedges, trying to figure out whether he should stay or leave or maybe vanish into the floor a little.]

[permutates]

[ She senses that he's there. Sees out of the corner of her eye that he's stopped in the middle of the gym floor, and she takes a breath, deciding to ignore him and let him decide if he wants to leave or not.

She takes four steps back, and gives herself a running start, pushing off of the end to flip in midair. She doesn't quite land on her feet, though, stumbling to one knee. ]

[tolaywaste]

[Well. If all else fails, give him an opportunity to mock.]

[Or at least grin and attempt not to mock but then kind of go there anyway.]

Going for the Olympics or what?

[permutates]

[ She moves back to her feet, stretching. ] Let's see you give it a try.

[ Her tone is kind of cautious; she's a little too sensitive to be entirely cavalier, but won't let herself be angry or sharp. ]

[tolaywaste]

[This pulls him up short. He almost hadn't expected her to engage.]

Not really my thing. You want anything blown up, though. Let me know.

Too bad that's not an Olympic sport.

[permutates]

Do you think they'd let mutants compete?

[ It doesn't really seem fair, does it?

She hops back up on the balance beam, though she's not really sure what to do next. Maybe try a roundoff or a cartwheel, see how far her instinctive grasp of the beam goes. ]

[tolaywaste]

[He shrugs, his bag half-on half-off his shoulder. He realizes he must look ridiculous, caught between coming and going, but he still doesn't understand what's happening.]

[Maybe he should stop distracting her. Or something.]

I think maybe. I don't know. I wouldn't really want to be an Olympic anything, though.

[permutates]

I would.

[ She doesn't either. But she'll let the conversation... go. ]

I wouldn't mind the work.

And people would have a reason not to mind what you look like.

[tolaywaste]

Just not really into that many people looking at me.

[Which is more honest than he means, so he turns abruptly away from the treadmill and heads to the weight machines. The downside is this brings him closer to her. Upside is at least now he's moving.]

[permutates]

[ She is. Though sometimes she wonders if she wants that just because it would be... different.

She frowns, and thinks through a cartwheel, and then figures, the hell with it, and tries it. Her palms land a little too hard, and it turns out more like a roundoff - she's not really sure what the difference is, though - but it's square on the balance beam. She instinctively knows where it is. ]

I think if people looked at you, you wouldn't have anything to be ashamed of.

[ She means that more than just in appearance. She means everything. She means she thinks Alex is good. ]

[tolaywaste]

[He gets settled quickly. He knows these machines. This is his place, in a small way. And while what he's doing on the machines isn't flashy, like Raven's movements, it calms him.]

Maybe.

[Not quite willing to say definitively, one way or the other. She sounds like Snow, kind of, except Snow doesn't speak in roundabout statements. Not like this.]

[permutates]

[ She's not really working on anything - she's just playing around. And she'll keep doing so while he's there. There's not much she can do without a teacher, anyway.

Sometimes the way she moves is almost like dancing. (Maybe a little bit of what Angel showed her works its way in.) ]

[tolaywaste]

[Next time he glances over, he has this - weird flash of regret. Why couldn't she have come when Bruce was here? She would have liked him, and he would have loved her the way Bruce loves people: gruffly, at a distance, and with all of his heart.]

[He clears his throat.]

You should talk to Cass. Cass Cain, she's good at that kind of thing. And -

I don't know. I think you'd like her.

[permutates]

She's a gymnast?

[ A snap of gratitude, that Alex is even saying anything to her, and she suppresses it, with her teeth gritted. She can't be grateful for something as stupid as that. Something that small. ]

[tolaywaste]

She's - yeah, she is, kind of, and other things. A vigilante, I guess?

[He slows and squints, not sure if that's the right word.]

She's a friend, anyway. She's a good person. And she likes milkshakes.

[permutates]

Is that a suggestion?

[ The milkshakes thing. ]

[tolaywaste]

Uh.

[Yeah, basically.]

Kind of. She's had a bad month.

[And he trusts Raven to be kind to her. Whatever else Raven is, she can be a good friend.]

[permutates]

I'll keep an eye out for her.

[tolaywaste]

Thanks.

[He visibly relaxes. It's not much, he can't do that much for Cass, but it's something.]

[permutates]

Anyone else I should talk to?

[ She doesn't miss that - the relaxation. It makes her wonder if Cass is more important to Alex than she thought. IF there's something there. But she doesn't think she can ask. ]

[tolaywaste]

[He chews the inside of his cheek, just briefly. He'd say Anya but - no. Raven upset Anya, unsettled her. Which reminds him, he needs to talk to her. He's less angry, now.]

My best friend - here, anyway - is Ben. He just graduated. But he'll probably talk to you again in his own time.

. . . Oliver. Oliver Queen. You might like him. [A quick smile.] Or hate him, I'm not sure. It depends on the day and how surly he's feeling.

He's my inmate. My second one. I don't know if I told you that.

[permutates]

...wait, was he the one who dropped into the conversation and then suddenly left?

[ Because she still doesn't know what's up with that.

Second inmate stops her short. ]

You're still here? After one.

[tolaywaste]

Yeah, that's Ben. [There's a fond smile here that's probably totally incongruous with what she's seen of Ben so far. Which is creepiness.] He grows on you.

[He stops with the weights completely at her hesitation. He doesn't know if she thinks he's stupid or what, but.]

I'm still here. Bruce stayed on for a while, and then he had to go take care of some things at home. Make things right. This really wasn't a good place for him to stay long-term.

[Which doesn't answer the unspoken question, it doesn't tell her why, but it's somewhere to start, anyway.]

[permutates]

[ She winces, as she realizes: ]

That was a stupid question. I remember, about Darwin.

Can I ask - I'm not trying to accuse, I promise - why you're here, instead of back with him? Isn't that part of what you wanted, and why you wished for it?

[ She perches down on the edge of the balance beam, legs swinging. ]

[tolaywaste]

It's not a stupid question. It's - complicated.

[He sighs, and runs his hands through his hair. How to put this . . .]

The one thing is, Erik's here. And this place - he doesn't deserve to be here.

The other thing is, Charles is here, and he's not leaving until Erik does.

And then the other big reason is . . . there are people here I need to be here for. Not just them, but Bruce, when he was here, he needed me, even after he graduated. [And Alex needed him, but that's not the point.] Jean, you might've met Jean, she's important. I couldn't leave Ben. And Pietro.

[Anya. Snow. Cass. Even Chris. There was no way he was just leaving them.]

This place makes me angry, the way it's set up, the way it's structured. The way things work around here sometimes. I'm not okay with not being here when people are locked up with nobody to advocate for them.

. . . I thought about staying home. But I think people could see [Darwin could see] I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did.