17317/How to Get Slashed by Colleen Wing

How to Get Slashed by Colleen Wing
Date of Scene:	02 March 2024
Location:	Chikara Dojo
Synopsis:	Danny finally tells Colleen he is back. He asks her out on a maybe date. The dance of clueless and mule-headed starts right where they left it.
Cast of Characters:	Colleen Wing, Danny Rand

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Colleen Wing has posed:
    One of the best ways to manage it is to scare her, make her mourn you for dead, and then come back and not think to even tell her. You know. Not tell the woman who considers you one of her closest friends. And, in the privacy of her own mind, sometimes even thinks Danny is something more than that.

    While he has been away, she has been training. Training on such a level that one might think she has a specific goal in mind. She is in her dojo, working on her Wing Chun dummy. The sound of body hitting the hard wood of the dummy rings out in a succession so fast it is hard to work out how she is managing it.

    She's just very frustrated as of late. It's her toilet. It's not working properly and there's no landlord to fix the damn thing. At least that is what she tells people.

Danny Rand has posed:
He doesn't come in through the front door, that would make too much sense. Instead Danny slipped through the side door in the alley. Or maybe it makes perfect sense if he was trying to be sneaky about things.

But he's not, so it's back to not making sense. He's also not trying to announce his presence by calling out or even speaking for that matter. No, he stops at the doorway leading into the Dojo proper and leans against the door frame.

Danny's dressed in a pair of old, comfortable gray sweats and a navy blue hoodie. Look, he's wearing shoes! It's all actually a step up from the very first time he met Colleen.

He doesn't utter a sound, again not because he's being sneaky. Danny just doesn't want to interrupt Colleen's workout. He's respectful like that.

Colleen Wing has posed:
    Colleen is not respectful right now. The dummy must have personally offended her in a past life. And yes, it is that same, sad one with the duct tape. Which means what is about to happen is inevitable. It is a measure of pure luck that it only happens now.

    One of the arms goes flying. Colleen strikes it so hard she sends it flying across the room, bouncing right over to rest just in front of Danny. She lets out something of a worldless shriek and growl of frustration. And then she sees Danny.

    Her eyes narrow to the point of nearly disappearing. Without a word she walks over towards him. Using those quick, sweeping steps that might lead one to suspect she's about to attack them.

    She doesn't. Yet.

    "... where have you been, Danny?" Her tone is ambiguous. Happy? Furious? No doubt it will be revealed soon enough.

Danny Rand has posed:
He watches the dummy arm come sailing his way, but he doesn't move. It's not difficult forfor Danny to gauge that it's not going to actually hit him. "You need a new dummy," he obviouses. He didn't say 'buy a new dummy', likely because it's a vague, round about offer to buy it himself.

"I had a lead, I followed it," Danny replies simply and really? Honestly. "Didn't pan out," he adds. He seems as if he's still just standing there all casual, hands in the pockets of his hoodie. People that know him really well, however, would know his tells. That little twitch of the muscles along his jawline, the way one foot shifts just a little to the left and back.

Danny's definitely ready to move and do so quickly. Even if he has no idea what he's done wrong, he knows that tone, that walk, all of it.

"Students been keeping you busy?"

Colleen Wing has posed:
    Colleen is still holding back. She is the arrow on the string. There is tension under the thin veneer of serenity. "I see. How long have you been back? Why didn't you tell me? I could have gone with you."

    She... did not want to say that last part. She bites her tongue near hard enough to draw blood. Of course she had better things to do than follow him around! This infuriating man.

    "Students have been. There's this new girl who started coming in a few weeks ago. She's a really fast learner. She has great intuition." Subtle implication that someone in this room does not share that trait!

    Distraction needed. "My toilet is broken." The look makes it clear that this is, somehow, his fault.

Danny Rand has posed:
Danny shrugs. Seriously, he really shrugs. His shoulders lift almost to his ears. He slips his hands out of his pockets. "I figured it was a goose chase, but..." But his obsession wouldn't allow him to not at least check it out.

"I don't know," he says as he lets his shoulders drop back down. "A week maybe?" He's mentally trying to do the math. He's clueless, but he's not /that/ clueless. Her mood has something to do with him being gone and the time between being back and dropping in for a visit. He /could/ go all the way back to that one night in town with Jessica.

But even Danny Rand isn't that bloody clueless.

"I think the twenty-first? Had to go to this birthday thing for Emma Frost." He wrinkles his nose at the mention of it. Danny hates those uptown parties, hates being obligated to make appearances at them.

He's a /shit/ liar so it's a good thing that he's not technically lying. He has only been back - for the second time - for about a week and a half (give or take).

Colleen Wing has posed:
    "So on the tenth day after your return, after being gone and making me wonder if you were okay, or maybe -probably- dead, you figured it was time to tell me that you were, what exactly? Delayed by the party of some snooty rich girl?" asks Colleen. Her temper is not improving!

    She attacks.

    There is no shriek, no vocal sign of her mood at all. It's just one moment angry woman talking, the next moment angry woman punching! Yes, Danny is always faster than she is, but with righteous(?) anger Colleen is not going to worry about that. It is the principle that matters.

    She has been training a lot lately. She is bit faster, and despite her anger, she is surprising focused. This is definitely the best Danny has seen her fight yet! Who knew that she could be so easily inspired! The flow of attempted punches, kicks, and even a knee strike is new. She's been thinking of him!

Danny Rand has posed:
Still not quiet fast enough, Colleen. This song and dance has happened so many times in the past that both of them definitely know all the steps by heart. She attacks, Danny dodges. He ducks out of the way and spins, ending up behind Colleen. If it was anyone but her, he'd be moving in quick for a choke hold and a flip.

But it is Colleen, so he just takes a few hopping steps back to put distance between them.

"It's not like I /wanted/ to go to that party," he laments. "You know I hate those things." He doesn't make a move, not a single one, in Colleen's direction.

"Then there were 'mandatory' board meetings and a million things to sign." It truly does suck when one's position as a billionaire CEO gets in the way of their crime fighting, doesn't it?

"Do we really have to do this right now?" he almost whines. "Let's go get dinner? Maybe go to Luke's?"

Colleen Wing has posed:
    She is just bristling. But somewhere along the way, Colleen realized she is so upset she is almost crying. Frustration? Anger? Sadness? Whatever it is, it makes her more upset. Not being able to hit him was expected. But regardless of how many times it happens, it is infuriating.

    Eventually, though, he asks her out. Dinner? She gives him a look. "Dinner? Like... what? A date?" She has this expression that is a mix of incredulity dashed with just a touch of... is that hope? Oh, and an extra helping of 'are you for real?!'

    Regardless, she is not attacking him anymore. She's rather breathless now. That was a lot of effort. Colleen doubts she made any point to him at all. He has no clue.

Danny Rand has posed:
Clueless, yes. But Danny does know that, somehow, that's a trick question. A yes or a no to that question could bite him right in the ass. He does his best to dance around and avoid it with, "I hear there's this new pizza joint down a few blocks. We should check it out."

So date, not a date? It remains the question of the day.

He's had 'round about nine years to figure all this shit out and still hasn't managed to do so. As infuriating as that can be, it can also be one of Danny's most endearing qualities. Maybe just not so endearing right now.

In another effort to avoid the question of the day or dance around it further he adds, "I'll call someone about the toilet." If he tried to do it himself, the place would wind up flooded.

Maybe if he adds a bidet to the toilet job? Maybe that'll make this all better?

Colleen Wing has posed:
    That is about the answer that Colleen expected. If she were more confident in her own pursuit of that answer she would pin him down on an answer. She would, for once, deliver him a strike he could not slip away from.

    The problem is that she does not want to know the answer. Colleen certainly does not want him to think she wants it to be a date! Even though, at this point, her expression makes it so obvious that she's a bit let down by his avoidance.

    "Pizza sounds fine," she says at last. He can expect to have to fight her over the bill. Despite the fact that she can barely cover rent and utilities. No matter what he did to her rent, she keeps paying the same as before.

    "And good. About the toilet." She looks him over. "I'll never be able to imagine you in one of those fancy offices. And in a suit?"

Danny Rand has posed:
That's why Danny will prepay for their meal with a running 'tab' the same way one would at a bar. It's pretty typical though, her looking let down, him being clueless.

And keeping in line with the being clueless bit, Danny holds the door open for Colleen once she's ready to leave.

It's a gentlemanly thing to do, sure, but under the circumstances it's likely that she wanted to open her own damned door! It's only a few blocks away so no need for him to fire up that Aston Martin DB-11 sitting out front. It's his one and only guilty pleasure since becoming a billionaire overnight nine years or so ago. He has the penthouse, but it was already there. The car was all him.

At least he doesn't try to order for her when they sit down to dinner?"

Colleen Wing has posed:
    He gets a /look/ for opening the door. But after a moment's hesitation, she goes through, muttering something under her breath. There's something familiar about all this. It's frustrating, but he is always cluless, and she is too mule-headed. The cosmos will have to intervene in order for this to ever resolve itself.

    She notices his car. It surprises her, really. How the hell is it that he's never missing wheels? How is it that it never gets stolen? Danny does not have all the luck, but his life is charmed.

    "So anyway, you are going to tell me everything about your wild goose chase. And leave nothing out." And along the way, she'll also be worming the truth about his return from him. How long has it /really/ been, she wonders. She won't try to hit him. She'll do something worse. She'll look sad! Dirty trick, indeed.