manwithoutfear | [for Natalya]

Since that first time I stumbled across the boxing ring, I've become careful about when I stop by for a visit. There's always the danger of being found. Of needing to make explanations for why a blind lawyer would be such a skilled pugilist. And while that is one of the few dangers left to me in this place, I am selective about when I indulge in it. About when I throw caution to the wind and simply enjoy the steady thump-thump rhythm of wrapped hands against a heavy bag.

Nighttime is the obvious choice. There are fewer who walk around when the air turns cool and it's easier to pass by unnoticed. (After all, I don't rely on the light of day to get around.) This is the only pattern I hold to. Day of the week, hour of the evening, duration of the stay... Those all vary. Tonight, the sun's only just gone down as I arrive, the sounds of the jungle only just beginning to shift.

I pull the hood of my sleeveless sweatshirt over my head upon entering the ring, fingers skirting around the stitches from my adventures in home improvement earlier in the week. (My hair's grown long these past few months and my bangs cover what's sure to be my newest scar.) Sense-memory takes me to the now-familiar bag. I place my hands flat against the material to situate myself, inhaling deeply. Sweat. Salt. Oiled leather and canvas. The perfume of flowers whose names I've learned (and some I've haven't).

I'm about to take a swing. To expend some of the restless energy that's built up deep in my bones while others have found more interesting avenues, when I hear something. Someone. Quiet. Were I anyone else, I might not have noticed them at all.

But since I'm not, I let out the breath I've been holding and I wait.

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Natalya walked alone to the boxing ring, Ahimsa flitting off into the trees like a pale grey shadow to do whatever it was direwolves did on their own at night. The day had been uneventful, which was not to say it was restful, and by its ends Natalya found herself desperately needing to unwind.

She would have tracked Sam down, still had the thought to turning over in her mind, but first she wanted a workout. A certain kind of workout, anyway.

The truth of the matter was, she'd sat down to a blank sheet of paper with a pen in hand for forty five minutes and written not a word, and now hitting something seemed like the best alternative.

Her footfalls were quiet as she approached the ring and stayed that way when she spotted someone in it. They way held themselves seemed vaguely familiar, their general shape and stature. With the hood up she couldn't tell who it was from behind, but clearly they'd been looking for the same thing she had.

A little solitude and a little release.

"Izvinitye," she said, not bothering to raise her voice. It was quiet enough out that it carried well enough.

"I am intruding."

Natalya. Of course. There's a moment, short-lived, where I consider telling her that she is. She hasn't recognized me yet -- her voice traveled forwards, from behind me. I could be anyone from her angle. (The problem with relying on sight alone.) It would be a simple matter of disguising my voice. So easy to lie.

But I'm in the mood for pushing my luck. It seems like everyone from our little community has been involved in some act of derring-do or another, and while I would hesitate to say that I feel left out, I certainly do feel something else. Bored. Restless.

I turn to face her in profile. My lips pull back in a smile. Without raising my voice any louder than hers, I say, "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were following me."

"Matt," she said, blinking. Well that was an interesting development. She'd seen him less than dressed, seen the scars and the signs of a hard life, things not earned by falling or bumping into things one couldn't see. It raised questions. More, paired with finding him like this.

"Mmn, nyet, not today," she said, lifting an eyebrow and moving to lean against the ring, arms crossed over its edge, watching him through the ropes.

"This time is coincidence."

"Maybe tomorrow, then," I suggest, walking towards her. I can feel the movement beneath my feet, hear the ropes give a little under her weight. She's leaning against them, but she hasn't yet stepped inside the ring. I stop to rest in front of her, reaching out to brace myself on the topmost rope.

"I take it you wanted to...?"

"Da," she replied.

"There are things I cannot work through with words, so I am fall back to what is more eloquent," she told him, smiling a little. She realized absently that she was becoming comfortable enough around him to speak as much like herself as English would allow. She could really only count one or two others in that group, and some of them were no longer on the island.

"What is most direct."

"Frustrated, are we?"

I know the feeling. Which is why I move about three feet to my left, as though making to leave. I can always come back later if she wants to be left alone... But I don't move so quickly that she can't stop me. Maybe she needs a listening ear as much as she needs to beat the tar out of something.

Or maybe I just want to make myself useful.

"Please," she said, ignoring the question in favor of halting his departure, "stay. I am not wishing to... to interrupt you."

She drew away from the ropes, fingertips sliding over the canvas until she was standing far away enough from the ring that she couldn't reach it.

"Was not my intending," she clarified gently. She had intruded, she thought.

"You didn't interrupt anything," I assure her. This is true, in that I hadn't actually started my workout. You can't interrupt something that hasn't, strictly speaking, begun.

"And you'll probably make better use of this place than I will."

"You are lying," she said, voice lilting up enough where it could have been teasing, though she meant it, and slid her hands into the back pockets of her shorts, walking backward away from ring.

"I think."

"Maybe I am," I reply, and I insinuate myself between the ropes, not to leave, now, but to better offer her my hand. I am no stranger to scaring people away, but there's no point for it now. We can share the ring. A compromise.

I've been known to be good at compromises. At finding ways to making two antithetical things work together, though not without some sacrifices. My lives as vigilante and lawyer did not come without a cost.

"I'll hold the bag for you. C'mon."

She paused, mid step, then reversed it and walked back to the ring. She reached up and took his hand before slinging herself lightly up with his assistance.

"Maybe I also do this for you. Return favor."

"That won't be necessary," I say on the impression of a laugh, letting my hand drop from hers once she's steady. I don't lead the way, preferring to follow her instead. I can't come across too certain in here, though I suspect it's already too late to play entirely naïve.

Natalya walked to the bag, then around it a little, her eyes staying trained on Matt.

"You are come here often?" she asked, tone gently curious, no different than any of the casual conversations they'd had.

"My father was a boxer," I say, not recalling if I've already told her as much in a previous conversation, but not exactly caring, either. It's the truth, regardless; they called him Battlin' Jack Murdock, before he was murdered.

I pass by her and, sensing I'm close enough to reach, place my hands once more on the bag.

"It's one of the few places here that reminds me of home."

"Is the smell?" she asked.

"It is same for me when winter is come, and there is snow. Suddenly there is smell of pine, everywhere, and is closest I feel to home since I am leave to America." She flexed her fingers, folded them into fists, slid her feet into the stance she'd been taught, and had learned so very, very well.

"Ready?" she asked.

I don't speak Russian, but I've run in Natasha's circle long enough to get a sense for the language. The context doesn't hurt matters, either; I can hear her get into place, the shift in her voice and the slip-side of her feet against the mat.

I nod once.

[for Natalya]

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