Owner	Pose
Melinda May	May's duties of late have kept her either away from the Triskelion -- often flying in and out of the beleagured city -- or largely confined to training activities. She and Peggy or Daniel have frequently met, leading some to speculate about some high level operations planning in the works. But really it's just been so that she could have a 'safe' place to work on paperwork without having to fear being accused of compromise. She enjoys her sessions in the training facilities more. But, then, she's never liked paperwork, anyway. Having just finished another qualifying evaluation with a collection of junior agents, she moves toward the bench where she's kept her things during her stay in this room to pick up a water bottle.
Dottie Underwood	Dottie has been largely unoccupied. While she's still entertaining the Secretary of Defense, she can't be seen with him often enough to raise her profile. That sort of attention would never do. Too many people might recognize her as someone else. Otherwise she's been engaged in training with Cal'hatar for his SCAR initiative. He at least keeps the pretense of superior morality to a minimum. She stands in the corner by the doorway, watching the junior agents spar. Some of them are at least skilled enough to be more of a danger to others than themselves. Could be worse, she supposes.
Michael Erickson	Cal'hatar doesn't worry about moral superiority, usually - you can't in the game he's been in all this time. He's seen with Dottie whenever they spend time together, training or whatnot; he has zero problem being seen with her, even though some agents do give him the side-eye. Alien spy turned SHIELD agent? Someone's got to think that he's a double agent. But the Chief has vouched for him, and he hangs with people like Drew and May...     "Privyet," Michael murmurs to Dottie as he steps into the athletics area, stepping ove in the corner next to her. "Watching the young ones play at stabbing one another?" He sees May, but she's busy cooling off and he already knows what sort of tension's likely to get stirred up between the two women. In moments like this one wishes they were wearing a referee's striped top under his gray suit jacket.
Melinda May	The young agents file out past the pair watching from the door. Most of them are too new to have heard more than rumours about either, and probably haven't even seen their photos before now. May, on the other hand, feels the sharp edges of each of them standing in the door -- alien emotional signatures, both of them, in their own ways. She finds herself reaching out further afield in the building to find a less contentious signature to root herself in. Phil is in a meeting only a floor or two above. Perfect. Setting her bottle down, she strolls slowly toward them. She's not inclined to speak in greeting. Doesn't particulalry need to. But since she's curious as to why they're hanging around watching... "They're green. A couple of them might survive to middle age."
Dottie Underwood	Dottie nods. "Well, there's only so much you can do," she says, milky kindness dripping from her words. "It's already too late for most of them. Adult bodies are so much less...adaptive." She smiles pityingly at their retreating backs.
Michael Erickson	"Just because they're trainees here doesn't mean they're only starting their journey," Michael points out quietly to Dottie. "Some are soldiers or police or the like. They'll be fine..."     He looks to the approaching May, and her words elicit equal parts amusement and concern. "Well," he says in reply, "Let us hope that they train harder, then. How are you today?"
Melinda May	May chuffs softly at what she knows is an open dig from Dottie. Certainly, she started *her* fight training as a child. Perhaps not her spy training, but there's a reason she's one of SHIELD's most decorated hand-to-hand combatants. There aren't many styles she hasn't at least tried. She chooses not to openly respond to Dottie, however, because the thought of the Red Room, right now, isn't... healthy for her. "Still breathing," she says in response to Michael, instead. The shrug that accompanies it implies that that means it's probably a good day. The fact is, though, it's really just... another day. And she's still just spinning her wheels. "Something I can do for you two? Or did you just want the space?"
Dottie Underwood	"Couldn't you tell which ones have had some sort of formal training already?" Dottie asks the Shi'ar. She could. The woman recognizes the grace and ease of years of practice. The body remembers. More than the mind at times. She's learned this lesson better than most.
Michael Erickson	"I try not to assume," Michael says to his Russian comrade. "But yes. Either way, the teachers here are competent. They will have a better chance of survival than might appear to the eye, yes?"     Now he gives May a smile. Competent teacher, see? "You look as though you should be on the floor yourself," he tells May. "Come. Let us fight. You will be challenged, and feel better."
Melinda May	"Believe it or not, it's the ones with outside training that are more at risk," May snirks. "They don't realize just how much higher the stakes are with SHIELD." Which means they think they know it all, already. It's her job to beat it out of them. She likes her job. As Michael suggests they spar, a brow arches. She considers it only a fleeting moment, before she gestures to the mats. The training sessions are over for the day. If they're not here to claim the room, she's perfectly willing to.
Dottie Underwood	"Depends on the training," Dottie says, a vicious grin of memory spreading over her lips. Even here, even in Agent May's capable hands, failure won't mean death. Success won't mean becoming the instrument of it. Still she nods. And crosses to the mats. She waits, an invitation.
Michael Erickson	"Fighting," he says. "The two of you. If there was any more tension between the two of you I'd swear you were sleeping with each other." Michael would know this, of course, from experience. His relationship with Agent Drew isn't heavily advertised, but it's not exactly secret. "Fight it out. I won't take you offworld if I can't be sure you've at least /some/ kind of understanding." He takes off his jacket, folding it and putting it on the floor as he undoes his necktie to put it down on top. "Don't kill each other or I shall intervene." He seems to feel that he can, these two lethal women in the mix. Funny man.
Melinda May	May snirks softly again, looking at Dottie. "Yeah, you don't count," she says. "The Red Room, Leviathan, HYDRA... they're all on the same playing field as SHIELD." Which means she's feeling especially cynical today. A brow arches yet again as Michael indicates he expects them to fight. As far as she's concerned, she and Dottie *do* have an understanding. Dottie is here because Peggy said she should be. And even if Dottie's not loyal to SHIELD, May doesn't expect her to move against Peggy. So, as long as Dottie's playing by the rules, May will let her be. And, in fact, she has. Since that day on the range together. If Dottie wasn't sitting so very in the middle of the Red Room, right now, May wouldn't be nearly as prickly about her as she is. "You know," she says slowly, moving to one end of the mats, "I don't think we've had a real throwdown since January '49." When May shot her. Something she'd never have been able to do without Peggy there.
Dottie Underwood	Dottie grins. "A lot has happened since then. At least for me. How long ago was that for you?" A lot has happened *to* Dottie in the seventy odd years since that encounter with Melinda May. But she doesn't like to dwell. May is right about one thing. The Red Room, Leviathan, HYDRA, SHIELD...they're all the same. At least in Dottie's experience. Perhaps SHIELD is worst of all. The Red Room skewed her, made her sharp and twisted, overwrote her mind, but SHIELD stole what was left of her soul and locked it behind a series of achingly false memories. And called it rehabilitation. And May has read the right of her. Dottie won't move against Peggy. But the thought of the woman, who she has become, what she has settled for in settling down, sours in Dottie's mouth -- bile and disappointment. To think, Peggy Carter was once someone worth envying. The emotions contort in Dottie. Old wounds. Vicious and prickling, teeth bared like a snarl.
Michael Erickson	A lot has happened to them all, it would appear. Michael looks between the two women, gauging their reactions - apparently quite serious about the aforementioned 'intervention' shoud things come to lethal blows. "All right," he says then, stepping back and leaving the floor open as he undoes his collar button. "Go to it."     Well. This should be fun.
Melinda May	May can't miss those emotions and the roiling frustration and hostility they engender in the other woman. And because they're the strongest source of emotion to her, it's hard -- so very hard -- not to feed on them, to internalize them and reflect them. Especially since they echo so many of her own feelings. Of course, in Melinda's case, her frustration boils down to Lily Chen. Boils down to herself. And Peggy only holds up a mirror of everything she once wanted but could never achieve. But Peggy... one hundred years old with the body of a twenty-eight year old and a second chance Melinda would die for, herself... She's got all of it. Career. Partner. A new chance at family. May has a timetwin who seems to do everything better than she ever could... who has all of eternity ahead of her to 'get it right'. And May has... regrets. Bahrain. The Framework. More. Her jaw tightens and she moves to the center of the mats to assume a neutral stance, watching Dottie with glittering eyes. Aggression therapy is a thing. And if Dottie's emotions are any indication... they both need it.
Dottie Underwood	Dottie takes in the frustration in May's movements, the tightness of her jaw. Her eyes gleam at the anger that radiates from the other woman. It's out of character. Not the anger, but the show of it. Melinda May is a banked fire, always ready, always smoldering beneath the surface. But flicker of anger sparking in her is *interesting*. That odd curiosity, that excitement stirs in Dottie once more. Fierce and sharp and deadly. This should be fun. She closes the distance to the center of the mat. Still not attacking. Assessing.
Michael Erickson	He watches, quietly, as the two circle one another - internally, if not physically. Yet. He's seen this scene play out many times, both in his own squad and others that he served in; Regnaal bruisers and Saurids, Shi'ar and Pindyr penal troopers, all of them have gone round and round in the parade square to sort out their differences. Such is the way of the Empire. So strange that among humans such as these two women, he feels more like his old self than he has in years.     Arms crossed, he watches them prepare. Experts sizing each other up. Artists. It might only take one clash to determine the victor.
Melinda May	Dottie closes in and May watches her move. She feels that spike of excitement, the fierce sharpness of it, the avid curiousity. It grates on her. She feels it prickle down her spine and radiate out across her shoulders. The tell is in the subtle whitening of her knuckles as her fists tighten just a little more. She begins to circle physically, one foot crossing over the other slowly. But she only makes it about a third of the way around the circle before she strikes. She is viper fast, using fists to start rather than her feet. Dottie is taller than she, but Melinda is used to fighting bigger, stronger opponents. This woman does not scare her. Right now, nothing does. It's not bravado or false courage. It's a carelessness of person that comes from being beaten down enough that getting back up is nothing more than habit. There's nothing left to lose.
Dottie Underwood	Dottie catches the blow with her forearm, rather than dodging it. Perhaps she wouldn't be fast enough to avoid the strike. Perhaps she just doesn't care. She jabs under the arm for May's ribs. Her height is only an advantage if she keeps her distance. But Dottie stay close, invading May's personal space, pressing the wildness in her to the surface.
Melinda May	May and Dottie clash in a flurry of blows it would take an expert to untangle. Each of them have distinct styles, but each of them are highly adaptable. Nevertheless, each shows the source of their training -- a mix of Asian disciplines vs. the Red Room and an ecclectic combination of other disciplines picked up over a century of fighting. They are remarkably evenly matched. May's strikes are hard and fast. She's not pulling her punches. She rolls with the strike to her rib, hardly feeling the bruise she knows will be there later. She spins, an elbow slamming into Dottie's kidney. She follows it up with a series of other blows that would incapacitate another flow. She is not blocking the blows that land on her in return -- though with most other opponents it would be easy to do so -- favouring an offensive technique meant to overwhelm and overbalance instead.
Michael Erickson	Since coming here, Michael has trained in a number of human combat styles - none of them to the point of being an expert, but some of which are very close to that which he learned as a young man. But his were brutal, lethal. All martial, little art. The Imperial forces were conquering militaries, much of the time.     May's elbow he can almost feel, though. He winces internally as she lands the blow on Dottie - but after that wince, he frowns inside, too. Knows that energy with which May fights. He'll need to talk to her later.
Dottie Underwood	Dottie's grin grows wider under the onslaught. She's borne worse, and with less capacity to defend herself. The pain is familiar, and thus, ignorable. May is too close to kick effectively. But not too close to tangle up with limbs. Dottie sends an elbow to her face and a knee to her solar plexus. She falls back, not a retreat, but repositioning for further tactical advantage. More room for her longer limbs.
Melinda May	May grunts as the blows land. Dottie retreats -- after a fashion -- and she presses her attack so as not to allow the taller woman the advantage of her long limbs, keeping within her guard. Her emotions spill, tangling the rage she's been caught in since Vostokoff's attack with the excited fierceness of the proto-Widow she faces. She's no Widow... but she has their skill. And perhaps their heartache, too. There's a dark mirror in their movements. Her fury at the universe is both palpable and affecting. Others will feel it, too. It's inevitable.
Michael Erickson	Just like the days in camp. Michael leans against the wall of the training room, now, watching the two of them come alive - and alive they are, now, alive with the warrior spirit that he knows all too well. When he wore the officer's clusters that marked him as a leader of soldiers, and rained down hell upon the enemies of his people.     Despite it all, he's smiling too. Faintly, but it's there.
Dottie Underwood	The sudden rage that sparks in Dottie's eyes engulfs her usual disquiet. Her fists land a little harder. Her movements become less precise. The Russian winter of her composure starts to thaw and crack. She sweeps a leg behind May, taking them both down to the mat. She wants to enjoy this, ride the fierce struggle for survival to its fated conclusion. Her teeth are bared, begging to split her lips against them. She knows better. She doesn't care. The world has narrowed to pain -- pain she inflicts and pain she receives. And that pain echos the emotional turmoil which attacks her now. This is not her suffering, for all that it blooms inside her.
Melinda May	The dance between the two women is deadly, now. Not lethal -- mainly because both of them are too skilled for that. They can avoid the killing blows. But there's a wild recklessness, now. Anger. Grief. Turmoil. Pain. But no fear. Neither of them fear death. Neither of them fear pain or darkness or the grim reality of death. But life? Freedom? That's harder... That's a lot harder.
Michael Erickson	It's therapy. Intimiate - and, perhaps, Michael might have stepped away to let them fight it out in private were it not for the fact he would be leading them in battle. He has to know his troops, what they're fighting for, /how/ they fight for it. What pain they're hiding behind their smiles, now that those smiles have given way to dueling rictuses of defiance.     So. Intimate or not, he plays voyeur. Watching them weave new bonds between each other, even if they don't realize it yet.
Dottie Underwood	Dottie recognizes the mirror. She can't avoid it. And she can't look away. To do so would invite defeat. And Dottie survival is predicated on winning. So she takes as many blows as May inflicts. And she keeps fighting. Because as long as she's fighting, she's still alive.
Melinda May	May is bleeding. Her nose, her knuckles, and places where the skin split on impact even beneath her protective suit. The blood doesn't bother her. It hardly registers it at all. Not right now, anyway. Later, though. Definitely later. The anger spills from her, but so too does Dottie's tangle of emotion. Her ability to rein in her power has shattered under the pressure of the Widow's emotional assault, too close a mirror to herself. So, both their emotional states are broadcast and engendered in just about everyone within the area of a football field around the pair. There are probably arguments and fights breaking out beyond the training room, now. Eventually, *someone's* got to figure out that May is the source. Maybe.
Dottie Underwood	Bruises start to bloom on Dottie's pale skin. Broken capillaries pool blood into her muscles. It spills out of her mouth, staining her teeth. The rage spills out too. May's rage. Her own cold anger. And, abruptly, her wry amusement. How absurd. That she should find a mirror of herself here and now. And that her mirror should be Agent May. How utterly unexpected and absurd and true.
Melinda May	The absurdity of it, even as Dottie lands another solid strike against her ribs, is not lost on May. Indeed, though Dottie's emotions initiate the observation, May's own mind is quick to pick up on it, breaking through the haze of rage and pain. She chuffs out a harsh bark of laughter, even as Dottie's strike knocks the wind from her. Blocking the next strike, she spins and pushes back enough to bring knees and feet to bear. But there's a rictus smile on her lips and she continues to wheeze. It's not difficulty breathing. It's the hiss of her laughter continuing. "This is bullshit," she says, punctuating the word with an open palm strike of her own against Dottie's chin.
Michael Erickson	Is it? Michael doesn't seem to think so. If she can tell the alien's emotions, May will find them electric with pleasure, with pride - he can see what's happening, because he knows Dottie better than most given the short term that they've known each other. Sees May reflected in the Russian killer's psychological surface. Pleased, yes. But for both of them. It's oddly...paternal, in a way. Not patriarchal, of course, but of the commander seeing two soldiers working out their differences. He cares about those under his command, as much as they are in their chosen situation. It's an old, comfortable feeling. Old as his military career.
Dottie Underwood	The blood burbles on Dottie's lips as the laughter escapes. Until the strike to her chin, closes her mouth abruptly. She snorts. And flips herself back onto her feet. Her next blow lands, but lacks the fierce power of her previous punch. "It's ridiculous."
Melinda May	May continues to fight, ignoring that paternalism from the alien -- something that would irritate her under normal circumstance, given the length and breadth of her career. She is, after all, a commander in her own right. But she can't ignore the Russian's dark amusement or her own sense of irony. The idea that Peggy's pet pariah and she should be so closely aligned is... yes, irony of the highest order. She grunts with the impact of Dottie's fist, back peddalling and regrouping before launching a new flurry of strikes. Just like Dottie, though, the manic, wild edge is gone. The hits are solid, but they're closer to being back in control... as is her anger. Oh, that rage is still there. And Dottie is still too close a mirror for her. But the amusement allows her enough distance to begin to reassert her own iron strength of will to lock it down once more. "I think I owe you a drink..."
Michael Erickson	Sure she is. But he's twice her age, and in some ways an old man. Old people have their mindsets, after all. It's harmlessly meant, though obviously her irritation would have been understood - but here, other events have hatched, and he feels that it's time for the bout to end.     "All right, then," Michael says, looking between each other. "Go get smashed at the end of a vodka bottle. I'll talk to you two later, aye?"
Dottie Underwood	Dottie grins. She wipes the blood from her lips. "He's right, you know. It'll be a whole bottle."
Melinda May	"Of course, it will be," May replies, wiping the blood from her own face. "You're Russian." And she spent enough time in China along the Russian border to know the rules. She lets her hands drop, looking briefly at her torn knuckles. She chuffs softly. "Worth it." The hangover headache she'll have later, that is. It was a good therapy session.