ficlet: tony&river: sparring sessions

[amezri]

not_last_resort asked for a Tony&River ficlet set during a sparring session. So. Here goes!

----

It was his idea, so really, he could only be mad at himself.

River had wandered into the workout room where he'd been practicing some kata. She stood silently, just watching his movements and frowned occasionally when he didn't hit the right positions. Tony hadn't even realized she was there until she'd finally spoken.

"Stance is wrong. The block will be ineffective."

He absolutely did not let out a yelp as he whirled around to face her. Seriously. Ask him and he will totally deny it.

River covered her mouth with a hand as she giggled. "Sorry," she said with a smile.

Tony decided to ignore it. "What's wrong with my stance?"

The girl skipped over to the practice mat. "Like this," she said as she demonstrated. "Wider and deeper."

"That's what she said," Tony smirked, waggling his eyebrows.

River rolled her eyes. She'd gotten used to his manner of speaking, but that didn't mean she always let him get away with it either. Without giving him a chance to step back, she grabbed his arm and in one swift motion flipped him over, slamming him hard onto the mat.

"Uh... ow." Tony stared up at her from his position on the ground.

"Can teach you, but not if you make dumb jokes." She scowled down at him.

"Okay," he agreed dumbly.

So Tony told Pepper that he'd be unavailable for an hour each day and to make sure she wrote that down. There was some miscommunication and Pepper thought that Tony would be teaching River to fight -- he let her think that. In hindsight, instead of having Pepper schedule an hour to "spar with River," he should have had her schedule an hour for him to "get pwnd by girl."

Ten minutes into their first sparring match, it was pretty clear that all of Tony's fancy martial arts training might as well have been accomplished on the Wii for all the good it was doing him. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd ended up thrown to the ground. Jarvis was more than happy to provide an accurate count, of course. That wasn't what was frustrating him the most, though. The most annoying thing was that while Tony was starting to feel every bit his age, River wasn't even breaking a sweat. It was pretty clear she was holding back and, as frustrating as it was, his spine was grateful.

"Fuck," he groaned as he was once again flat on his back. This time, she'd also managed to kick him in the ribs. Awesome.

"Better," River said cheerfully as he slowly got back to his feet.

Tony dusted off his pants with a frustrated growl. "I'm still ending up with a face full of mat every time you come at me! How is that better?"

The girl considered this for a moment, her head tilting to the side a bit. "Didn't hit you in the face this time."

Comments

[amezri.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks! ^^* Tony would totally be confused by being pwnd by a little girl. He doesn't know that Jayne's mind is way dirties than his :-P

If you want more, you're gonna have to give me some prompts... XD

[amezri.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of that second one, so I will work on something longer, but here's one for now:

-----

Click. Click-click. Click. Click-click-click. Click-click. Click--

"Do you think you could stop doing that?"

He stops tapping the pen against the floor, clutching it in his hand. "Sorry."

Neither of them says anything else after that and the room fills with their silence. Both of them are sitting on the floor -- she's leaning against a wall, pressing the back of her head against it, and he's sprawled out, fiddling with the pen he'd had in his pocket.

"Well, Miss Potts," he says finally. "Is there something you want to talk about?"

She opens her eyes and tilts her head slightly to look at him. "No, Mr. Stark. Is there something you would like to talk about?"

"No," he says quickly. "I mean... not really. No." He looks away.

"This is stupid," she sighs.

"Not letting you out," a voice says suddenly from the other side of the locked door. "Not 'til you've had proper discourse."

He rolls his eyes.

"Don't make faces," the voice says.

Tony grits his teeth. "River, you open this door right now!" He knows it's futile; she's probably already gone.

----

Sorry. I don't know!! That's all I got :x

[arysani.livejournal.com]

haha. love it. (i might consider going to a movie tomorrow...if i could figure out where they were! because i may almost be out of time!)

love river. and you're painting a fun picture of the other characters for me.

"don't make faces." has to be one of my favourite river moments. hee!