As Lee sat on the couch, she couldn’t help but smile slightly. Today had, without a doubt, one of the best days she had had in a long time. Because they weren’t yet able to really spend a lot of time together yet, Lee had decided to surprise Tarin at the shop for lunch. And, though that lunch had ended up covering a lot of not so happy subjects, it had still been good. Nice.

She had been planning on going for a run that afternoon to get rid of some energy (the previous night had also been rather good), but at the last minute she changed her mind and went to the gym instead. What had happened there had been a complete surprise, though a very welcome one.

A new woman had walked into the gym while Lee had been warming up challenging the guys to getting beaten by a woman in the ring. Lee had taken the challenge, hoping that it would, in fact, be a challenge for her as she had doubted that the woman would hold back liek the guys did.

And what a challenge it was. Not only did the woman, who’d said her name was Michael, not hold back, it turned out that she was a mutant and so Lee hadn’t needed to like normal either.

Yes, Lee had been hit, hard, a number of times, but she’d also had the chance to do the same.

It had been the best sparring match she’d had in at least 5 years.

Even if she was now sitting on the couch, a dark bruise forming on her right jaw, and bags of peas covering a couple other places that were definitely bruising and/or swelling as a result of the spar.

But as she sat there on the couch, a damn baseball game on the tv in as background, Lee had a smile on her face as she waited for Tarin to get home.

The rest of the day had gone pretty much exactly as Tarin had expected after the takeout had been put away, the plates had been cleaned and Lee had left the shop. The remaining clients for the day had been regulars and that had all been fine except for the last older couple, the husband dead, who couldn’t even stop bickering now that one of them had shucked their mortal coil. The man had literally died in his easy chair while being harped at by his wife to get up and do something.

The woman had been coming for years, and the husband. Kept. Showing. Up. There was no accounting for taste. Apparently his unfinished business was to be perpetually miserable.

Finally though, they were gone and Tarin took the few required minutes to get the shop in proper shape to close up and close out the day. Lee had said she didn’t have any plans and Tarin hoped he could potentially prevail upon her to watch at least a little of the game.

To that end, he pulled on his jacket and ballcap and headed out the door for home.

The walk past the park still made Tarin shiver a bit, but it was getting easier every day. Maybe in some world there would come a time when he could cut through again to get to the apartment…but not for now.

Lunch had been…interesting. It had started off easy and comfortable, and him and Lee had actually sat and talked for a while. Tarin had learned things, lots of things both easy and hard to hear and easy and hard for Lee to tell. The problem had arisen, however, when Lee had tried to turn things around on him.

Everything had ultimately been okay, but Tarin still had a little pit of unease in his stomach at the thought of how he’d completely frozen when she’d simply wanted him to share a fraction of what she’d shared to him. It was a problem, but he literally could not think of a way to solve it. Not right now at least.

Those thoughts brought him to the apartment building and as Tarin let himself inside and made his way up the stairwell, he wondered what he might do to start getting more comfortable with…just…talking.

In the door Tarin went, almost instantly catching the unmistakable sounds of a baseball game on the TV as he made his way inside and dropped his keys on the table, mood significantly lighter than it had been a few moments before, especially when he saw the game that was on the TV ”I didn’t know you were Giant’s fa-” Tarin started, then his eyes fell on Lee on the couch.

Lee, who had just left the shop a few hours before.

Lee, who had acquired significantly more frozen corn than had previously been in the apartment and was using them to ice various parts of her body.
Lee, who had a rather spectacular bruise already darkening her jawline as she watched.

Tarin realized he had stopped dead in his tracks and was just standing there staring, still in his jacket and hat, pulled his eyes from Lee to glance around the apartment for signs of Kevin before bringing his eyes back to Lee’s. Why was she smiling?

”What. Happened?” he said, very very softly. And who do I need to find? He didn’t say it out loud, but it was implied.

Lee heard the door open and close followed by sensing energy approaching. As it was still far too quiet in the apartment for it to have been Rachel (though Lee had talked to her sister about just barging in), that meant it had to be Tarin. He was going to have questions. He was going to be upset, she was sure.

What she was not expecting was how quiet his voice was as he asked what happened.

“You don’t have to worry, Tarin. I’m fine,” Lee said. Then remembered how he had so emphatically said that she was not fine when he saw her bruises after the merge. So she quickly continued to explain.

”I went to the gym after lunch. Someone new came in, and I was actually able to spar. And spar properly. Turned out, she was a mutant too, and believe me, I was giving it just as well.”

Lee moved her hand to pat the couch beside her. “Come sit? I may be sore, but I’m not going to break or anything. Though,” she said, the smile coming back to her face even as she shook her head slightly. “That had to have been the best match I’ve had in years.”

Fine was such a loaded word.

Clearly, Lee was not fine.

People who were fine did not have bruises covering their bodies like they had been in a prize fight.

Lee spoke, and Tarin listened, he really did. It was just hard over the roaring in his ears that had started the second he’d seen her sitting there so clearly injured. As a general rule, Tarin simply just did not get angry. There was generally very little point and it had literally been knocked out of him at a young enough age that his first instinct was usually something else.

Seeing Lee like that though, it made him angry, and it took just a minute for him to reign that in. As had become more and more since the day Tarin had acknowledged the fact that he was feeling something for Lee beyond the overwhelming gratitude she was owed for saving his life, Tarin realized he was in serious trouble.

He did move to sit on the couch though, and he even remembered to sit a reasonable distance away after a glance in the direction of Kevin’s room. Surely he was home.

Lee was still smiling, though Tarin had to imagine that couldn’t feel good with the shot she’d obviously taken to the face and he couldn’t help but shake his head just a little bit.

She’d gone to the gym and found someone to spar with her. Another woman, it appeared, who had not felt the need to hold back while they fought.

”She better look just as bad as you do.” he said finally, heaving a sigh and looking Lee up and down again. ”At least you remembered the frozen veggie trick…and are actually using it.”

He sighed again, just physically unable to make even a half-hearted attempt at scolding Lee for doing this to herself, not when she was so happy. ”So did you win?” he asked, shoving the rest of what he was feeling away and into a tight little box.

As she looked up at Tarin, she could have sworn that she saw anger there. For a second. And then it was gone. But he sat down; definitely not as close as she would have liked, but about as close as he could and still be following the ground rules that they had put in place.

”Well, we didn’t hang out after long enough to see if bruises were forming on her as well, but like I said, I got her good as well.”

Then Tarin commented on the bags of vegetables that she was using for icepacks, and Lee shrugged. “I figured that you’d be even more upset if I didn’t start icing right way”

Lee was expecting Tarin to have been angry seeing her like this, or at least upset. But instead all he seemed to be doing was sighing. And asking if she’d won. Lee couldn’t help the small smile. “She definitely had a lot more technical training that I have,” Lee admitted with another little shrug.

“But you’re not angry or anything?”

God, she was so excited. Every time Lee talked about the sparring match she smiled and seemed almost giddy. It was a side of Lee he hadn’t really seen before and Tarin couldn’t help but shake his head as a small smile of his own appeared in spite of himself.

And she’d thought he would be angry with her. At that, Tarin frowned just a little bit as he looked over at Lee from across the couch.

”Why would I be angry with you?” he asked. Sure, his initial reaction had been anger, as was evident by the fact that it was still simmering in the back of his mind and his heart was racing just the slightest bit…but he hadn’t been upset with her.

”You’re a grown woman Lee. If you made a choice to spar like that, I don’t know that I’ve got a right to much of an opinion on it.” It wasn’t that he didn’t have an opinion on the matter, because as he sat there Tarin realized he did…but he just didn’t see how it was relevant at the moment.

”Now, if this…” he gestured to, well, all of her, hadn’t been something you signed on for. I’d have an opinion whether it was my business or not.”

”Well, not angry with me. But angry about all of this,” Lee explained, waving a hand vaguely to indicate the bruises and frozen vegetables.

Then Tarin went on to say that he didn’t have a right to an opinion on this unless Lee had she hadn’t chosen the events to lead to her looking like this.

But before Lee was able to say anything, she felt Kevin suddenly moving very quickly behind her, his bedroom door suddenly opening. “What’s the emergency, Kevin?” Lee asked, only turning to look in his direction once he would have made it into the living room.

”You did that today?!” Kevin asked, his voice both excited and disbelieving, as he made his way in front of the couch. “OMG, Tarin! Did you see the video?”

Lee blinked as she stared at her son standing in front of her, his phone in his hand. “There’s a video?” She asked, probably more shocked than Kevin was, but for very different reasons. She hadn’t even thought about that.

Lee clearly had something to say in response to what Tarin had said, but what it was, he didn’t know. Because right as Lee started to talk, Kevin’s door opened and the little hermit came running down the hall.

“You did that today?! OMG, Tarin! Did you see the video?”

There was a video? Casting a quick look in Lee’s direction to see she was every bit as surprised as everyone else in the room, Tarin shook his head.

”I definitely did not. I just got home a few minutes ago. Let me see what you’ve got.”

Kevin obliged and Tarin scooted just a little bit closer to Lee so that the three of them could all see the video.

And boy was it a video.

Lee and the woman on the screen were moving faster than either of them should have been moving. There were hands flying, and arms flying, and elbows flying…Tarin noted as the blow that had to be responsible for the bruise on Lee’s face connected and he visibly flinched. He’d known from grim personal experience that Lee could take a hit, but my god, he’d had no idea exactly what she could do.

The video ended and Tarin couldn’t help but look over at Lee, eyes slightly wide and open admiration on his face. ”Wow.” was all he could say. ”That’s…just impressive.”

Kevin was practically bouncing as the video finished and he turned his phone away, clearly starting the whole thing back over.

”But Mum’s can’t do that.” he said, eyes flicking back and forth between Lee and the phone, almost as if trying to confirm that it really was her.

Tarin couldn’t help but chuckle just a little as he moved back to the other side of the couch, ”Yours can.” he said simply.

There. Was. A. Video.

Of everything that she had done, everything that could have been deemed video-worthy (whether for good or bad), this is what had been recorded.

Nervously biting her lip as the three of them watched the video, even Lee flinched at a couple of the hits. And saw that the margin for error when she’d grabbed Michael’s elbow to flip her had been even smaller than she had thought.

Finally, the video ended, and Lee’s eyes moved to look between Tarin and Kevin, unsure what they would think. Her lip was still between her lips and that small crease was between her brows; not because she was thinking, but because she was worried and nervous. Though they had been training at the gym for 6 years, Lee had purposely never sparred while Kevin was there.

”Wow. That’s…just impressive.”

”But Mum’s can’t do that.”

Even as she sat there, icing the bruises that they had just watched how she got them, the look on Tarin’s face as he turned to her made her blush slightly. “Really?” she asked him softly.

Then Lee turned her eyes on her son, who kept looking between her and his phone. “Maybe now you’ll listen when I ask you to do stuff around the house?” Lee jokingly asked.

”But…” Kevin said, now just staring at Lee. “How? When did you learn to do that, mum?”

”You do realize that I had a life before you were born, right Kevin?” Lee asked, and amused smile on her face now.

”Really.” Tarin said with a quick glance in Lee’s direction before deliberately looking back at the baseball game on TV. Lee was blushing and she’d been biting her lip just a second ago, and none of it was lost on Tarin.

Lee spoke again though and Tarin had to laugh, ”I know I’m going to make sure there aren’t any dishes hanging out in the sink.” he added, unable to stay out of the fun.

Kevin was still in mild shock and disbelief though, and honestly Tarin couldn’t blame him. Lee had said that she’d sheltered her son from the darker aspects of his Father’s mutation as he’d grown up and it didn’t take much of a leap to see how that would extend to the darker parts of her own life as well.

Lee commented that she’d had a life before Kevin was born and the teenager sunk down on the couch in the empty middle spot, still looking at his Mother like he didn’t really know her.

”Well yeah, but you never told me you were…cool?” he said, ”This means you can teach me how to fight.” he said, excitement clear in his voice.

It was kind of hard not to laugh, Tarin decided, watching Kevin have the realization that Tarin himself had been having over and over again for the last couple of weeks.

”Pretty extraordinary, isn’t it?” he couldn’t help from saying with just the slightest bit of emphasis.

Lee smiled when Tarin confirmed that her fighting had been impressive. Especially after his reaction to what she had done, and how she hadn't been quite good enough, during the merge, it really made her feel good. Better than she had thought it would make her feel.

But then joked about not leaving dishes in the sink and Lee laughed. Even as Kevin sat on the couch between her and Tarin.

”Well yeah, but you never told me you were…cool?” he said, ”This means you can teach me how to fight.”

Lee laughed again, shaking her head. “What do you think I've been trying to do for the last six years?” She asked. Then she grinned. “And I'm cool?”

Lee learned forward, only a little stiffly, to look past Kevin sat Tarin. “Did you hear that? I'm cool.”

“Until you said that, yeah,”

She was still leaning forward looking at Tarin when he mentioned something about her and extraordinary. She narrowed her eyes slightly at him. It was not fair that he was bringing Kevin into this.

“It is. When did you learn to do that?”

Lee took a deep breath as she leaned back against the couch again. “Well, I learned little bits a lot of different places. And some from Blaine and people at the gym.”

Tarin did not miss how gingerly Lee leaned forward when she spoke. She wasn’t going to be able to move tomorrow.

Did he hear, ”I did hear it. You’ve got a witness.” Tarin confirmed.

As for the little narrowed eyes Lee sent his way, Tarin just shrugged with a satisfied smirk on his face then went back to watching the game as Kevin and Lee chatted, feeling like his place in the conversation had ended. It wasn’t the Mets, but it was baseball and it was on in this apartment. Tarin would take it.

“Well, I learned little bits a lot of different places. And some from Blaine and people at the gym.”

Kevin seemed to be digest that information for a minute and nodded as if coming to a decision, ”I’m ready to learn how to fight like that.” Kevin said, ”You threw her right over your head. Twice.”

Again, Tarin had to swallow a laugh. It was clear Kevin had watched the video more than the twice he’d rewound it in here.

Lee grinned when Tarin confirmed that he’d heard Kevin say she was cool. It had been quite a while since her son had admitted anywhere near her presence that she was anywhere even close to being cool. She would most certainly take it while she could, especially since she didn’t expect that feeling to last much past the next time she made him sit down to do homework.

But when Kevin spoke again, Lee couldn’t help but laugh at his second comment. Then she fixed her son with a more serious look. “Are you sure? You’re responsible enough to learn this and not misuse it?” Lee raised an eyebrow at Kevin as she continued. “Because if I hear about you fighting outside of the gym or training, you’re done then and there, understand.”

”Yes mum, I won’t get into fights. So when can we start? Can we go to the gym tomorrow?”

Lee just looked at Kevin for a moment. She knew it was just part of his excitement about the whole thing, but there was a part of her that wondered how he thought she’d be in any shape to go back to the gym the next day with what he had seen in that video.

Then she had an idea. “How about we start right now?” she suggested. Lifting her hand, Lee tapped a finger against Kevin’s forehead. “You need to think when you fight. Knowing how to do the moves is only part of it. If you don’t think, you’ll lose more than you win, no matter how ‘good’ you are.”

”But if you’re good, a better fighter than the other guy…”

Kevin trailed off as he saw Lee shaking her head. “Not if the other guy can beat you by out thinking you. Like you said, I threw her over my head twice. Think about that second time. It was risky. I stepped straight into the path of her elbow, more than I already was, and turned my back on her. Both are things most people would tell you to never do in a fight. But I did it because I was thinking. Why would I do that?”

Lee spoke, and it became harder and harder for Tarin to focus on the baseball game. She wasn’t just good at fighting, she was smart.

Tarin had never learned how to fight. It had been highly discouraged when he’d come to New York and it just wasn’t a skill he’d been interested in after he’d gotten away. His powers were more mentally based so he’d done things to make sure he was as mentally strong as possible. Tarin had told Lee that and he’d meant it. Any physical training Tarin had ever done had been so he could focus better…have more stamina, improve his concentration under duress.

Lee was talking on a whole different level.

The fight had been so fast. It had looked like every single movement was made on pure instinct, but Lee was saying that she had thought through the movements. That it had been intentional.

Okay, he was staring now, partially because he wanted to know the answer, partially because it was…well, to overuse a phrase, pretty damn extraordinary.

Kevin for his part was really thinking the problem through. Tarin didn’t interrupt, just watched Lee intently as they waited.

Kevin was thinking, really trying to puzzle out the answer that she had posed. As she waited, Lee glanced past her son to see Tarin just staring at her. Kevin was looking toward the coffee table at the moment, but Tarin…just the intensity that he was looking at her… “What?” she mouthed to him as a slight blush rose on her cheeks.

”Well,” Kevin finally said slowly, still thinking. “When she hit the mat like that, it looked harder than the first throw. And it stopped her when you threw her like that. Plus, it was a really cool move.”

As Kevin was speaking, Lee turned her eyes back to him, meeting his eyes when he turned to look at her again as he finished. But Lee shook her head. “That’s what happened, but it’s not why I did it,” Lee explained, her eyes darting over to Tarin quickly before moving back to her son. “You saw how she kept blocking and dodging me, right? I would speed up, thinking that would let me land a hit, but every time she just moved faster. How fast would I have to move to be able to be quicker than her?”

Lee paused for a moment, giving a slight shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to move faster than her. And I would run out of energy trying to figure that out. So I decided to stop trying to attack her and instead use her own speed and momentum against her.

“Like I said, it was risky. That elbow would have hurt if it had fully hit me. I had to time it right so that it didn’t fully hit me, but I just had to pull her arm as I bent over, and the rest of it was her momentum that took her over my head.”