Please adjust for Asgardian strength

[bornagoddess]

Sif could not be more thankful for Natasha's guidance through this place. She wasn't ungrateful for the others', each had their own sort-of specialty - Loki showed her entertainment (and nostalgia) while she had made Jemma promise she would let her know of any new findings about the place itself - but Natasha's guidance was all-encompassing. If not for her Sif would have gone hungry and not have stripped off her armour in two days.

If not for her it might also take her longer to discover a specific location to train one's physique. Despite her Asgardian qualities and extensive training Sif knew how important it was to keep in shape, reflexes keen, muscles hardened. As soon as possible she had decided to devote a few hours to this end, and if not for Natasha she would, once again, have had to do it in her armour. Which she loved, like a second skin, but it was not conducive to proper working of any muscle or bone in her body. It was supposed to make them move or shake as little as possible, after all.

The one issue with this idyllic scenario was that Natasha, strong fierce warrior that she was, was in stature a much smaller woman than Sif. While on the former these training garments were breathable and adequate, on the latter they were tight and small. Sif never exposed her midriff - it was a death sentence! - nor did her trousers reach only below the knee, but right now, here she was. A shirt with straps instead of sleeves that kept riding up her middle at the littlest movement, and pants that did not cover her calves. Not to mention that she had had to wear her boots all the same, for Natasha's shoes had given Sif no chance to even put her feet into them.

Slightly uncomfortable, Sif walked into the training room - the gym - and looked around. There were machines everywhere, each suited for a different area of focus on the body, as far as she could tell. Sif ignored them and zeroed in on the punching bags behind the first line of machines. Ah, yes. This would do nicely for a start.

She picked up the hand-wraps from nearby and equipped herself. Rotating her shoulders and neck, Sif gave a few hops of readiness before throwing the first punch. Immediately the bag went flying off of its hinges, hitting a few things and narrowly missing a person before crashing into the opposite wall. "Oh," Sif murmured.

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[captain_rogers]

The long and torrid past of one Stephen Grant Rogers and the inside of a gymnasium was likely worthy of being made into a Hollywood movie, a novel, or at the very least of a comic book series. Actually, wait, it had. All of those, actually. With a Smithsonian museum exhibit on top, for the whole world to see and experience through the wonder of its interactive exhibits.

While he had traded in the rundown, dimly lit confines of his Brooklyn neighborhood gym for the brighter, sharper-lined walls and mats of the S.H.I.E.L.D. vetted gym of DC (and didn’t that give him pause now), Steve couldn’t say he hadn’t remembered the Nexus’ tiled walls or full array of equipment. Of course, he had thought for the better part of two years that the place had been a part of a dreamscape and was better forgotten than not, but there was something comforting in the walls of the place. Maybe it was that there was space enough to breathe. Maybe it was that he had spent half his time in the hotel before burning away the thoughts of all that had plagued him then on its equipment. And, maybe, it had to do with the assurance that no one inside it was likely to lean into his ear and whisper a ‘Hail Hydra’ for old time’s sake.

Needless to say, it was an enticing prospect.

Dressed in the worn gym clothes he’d pulled from the box he’d arrived with, Steve walked into the gym with his attention focused on wrapping his hands properly. If not for the jangle of metal and canvas, as well as reflexes he was never not grateful for, he might have become intimately familiar with the weight bag that sailed his way, whether it had been weaponized or freed finally from the confines of society’s expectations.

As it was? He stepped out of the way, leaving him staring after it and turning toward the direction it had come from with eyes that might have been a touch wider than could be called dignified.

[bornagoddess]

Sif could have gone after the punching bag. She could have taken a dive and caught it mid-flight, probably. Or perhaps given how quickly it hit the wall, how brutally, she wouldn't have had time if she had tried. She had not tried, however. She stood and watched, all at once bewildered, embarrassed and annoyed. It was a bag for weaklings. While Sif was trying not to speak of Midgardians with derision, she found it typical.

She only noticed the man standing there when he stepped out from the bag's trajectory. As he turned his gaze on her, Sif's eyes were as wide as his. Sif motioned for the bag's final destination before saying, "Forgive me, sometimes I do not know my own strength." She might have killed him if he hadn't stepped aside, although him stepping aside at all was truly a feat. "You have sharp reflexes." She remarked with admiration.

[captain_rogers]

Steve was lost to the past for a long moment, remembering not only the months he had destroyed bag after bag in his attempts to exorcise something of the frustration that had crawled through him with every idle breath, but the weeks he and Bucky had spent training together. Before the Serum, before his five attempts at enlistment, even, Bucky had agreed to teach him to box, train him to run without collapsing under the weight of his own lungs, all in the desire for the two of them to enlist and serve together. He had run the gauntlet of all the recruiters had asked of him with those weeks beat into his muscles, bone and sinew, and still been left with 4F emblazoned on every attempt.

He was pulled back to the present, and with no little embarrassment for his lapse, by the sound of the woman’s voice. That the woman, now the he actually looked at her and not blankly in her direction, was the sort of dame that made putting his foot in his mouth a distinct possibility with every passing second, did nothing to lessen his embarrassment. But, still, he shook his head, telling her “I understand how that goes, believe me” and giving her what he hoped was a friendly smile and not one that shouted how much like a fool he was feeling at that exact moment.

“Thanks,” and with a breath, he loosened the stiffness of his shoulders, finding that the curiosity over how she was able to send a weight bag flying like she did was stronger than any momentary embarrassment he felt as he walked towards her, lifting a hand in greeting. “That was pretty impressive, yourself. Steve Rogers.”

[bornagoddess]

Sif had not been expecting a manifestation of empathy out of the man she had almost just killed. Nor had she been expecting a friendly smile to go with it. The Asgardian stood there, head tilted slightly to the side, eyes wide in surprise at the man's reaction. He seemed as though things like punching bags happened to fly at full force by his person on a daily basis. In fact, judging by what he had said, perhaps they did. He was a fine looking man, one who had to see some form of strength-testing situations very often. His smile, however, was a much softer one than that Sif was used to on such a man. Sif found herself smiling back.

When he raised his hand in her direction Sif waved back once. While his name sounded familiar Sif could not pinpoint where she had heard it last, and so she focused on nodding solemnly at his appraisal.

"I am Lady Sif, of Asgard." Sif's introduction had not changed. Just saying her name sounded insufficient, and she did not have a surname she used often. For those unfamiliar it would only sound like she was aristocracy from a far off place. For those familiar, well, it told them everything they needed to know.

[captain_rogers]

There had been a line one of the Commandos had been fond of quoting. A simple thing, a throwaway line that had been nonetheless hurt too much to think of for months after he had been brought back into the world. After the Thaw. Loki and New York had brought it again to the surface with the introduction of the Avengers and those who made up its number - an alien god, a downcast scientist who was sometimes a monster, a genius in a cybernetic suit, a spy - but this time without the heartache that had come before of thinking of Falsworth with his irreverent tip of his head as he had told him, over and over again ‘More things on heaven and earth, Steve. More things on heaven and earth.’

It came to him again with an easiness that spoke of comfort, rather than mourning always for those he had lost, as he headed across the gym to speak to the woman who had just thrown a 70 lb bag across a room as if it weighed nothing at all.

The reference to Asgard explained much of the ‘how’ and some of the ‘who,’ but he thought it best not to assume that finding a few pieces of the puzzle meant he understood the greater picture of it. No more than he might have assumed that the fact that she was beautiful - all dark hair and hazel eyes, long limbs and carrying a sharpness and steel to her that always appealed - meant that he should in any way disregard her in any category.

“Lady Sif?” His brows rose, remembering mentions in the limited file he had been given on Thor, as well as in the man’s words around the margins of more pivotal events. “I’ve heard of you. You’re one of Thor’s friends, right?”

[bornagoddess]

It was an odd thing, looking at this man. In all honesty Sif had not met many Midgardians. She could count them with the fingers of both hands and never run out of fingers. None of them had this seemingly perfect mixture of physical prowess with gentle disposition; he looked much like an Asgardian, tall and broad with a strong jaw to boot - but oozed the softness of a race whose time was limited, whose mistakes could very easily go uncorrected. In this instance, Sif did not use the word 'soft' in derision. It was admirable. It was one of the many things that made her gravitate towards Thor, more so in the last few years. It was a shame, then, that she had not analysed it enough to realize if not for Midgard, Thor might not have become that man - at least not to that extent.

Sif nodded at her name in his lips, smiling more broadly when he mentioned Thor. "Do not tell me you're one of his Midgardian companions as well!" Were they all here? "I have met the marvellous Natasha already, it is her garments I wear today," Sif pointed to herself, frowning slightly as she tugged at the hem of her top to cover her midriff more effectively.

And now it was time for a little deducing. Which one was he? Sif had heard their names as well as their descriptions, but hadn't successfully connected one to the other in most cases. There was the bearded magnate with the suit of armor, the gentle man of science whose anger made him into a jade-colored giant, the limber archer with an arrow for every purpose - whose brain had been night turned to mush by Loki's sceptre - and the soldier, the Captain, a shield-bearer ripped from his time and woken in a distant future. It was only due to her own biased view of shield-bearing that Sif felt sure of who this man was. You needed immeasurable strength, stellar reflexes and a sturdy constitution to use a shield effectively. Especially if you did not use a sword with it.

"You are the Captain, are you not? The shield-bearer?"

[captain_rogers]

While the man himself was not without his gravity, the stories Thor told of the adventures he had sought out and the quests he had undertaken with the Lady Sif and the Warriors Three were ones of grand gestures and great battles, interspersed with the hilarity one could only find in comrades at arms and the ease with which you lived among them. Steve thought he could have done with more of those stories as they stood as a reminder of all he might have lost but had lived in the glory of. There had been an understanding in each word that war was not in itself glorious, that that was a lesson hard won and weighty across one’s shoulders. That it left its marks on a person’s soul along with the memories of those who had been saved, and those who had been lost.

Thor had drawn the shield maiden in terms of fire and steel and her laughing smile, and Steve could see it in the smile she lit up with at the mention at her fellow Asgardian, hear it in the enthusiastic burst of her voice.

His eyes dropped to follow the movement of her hands, unable to do anything less than note that the clothes that no doubt fit Natasha in comfortable efficiency strained to cover Sif’s longer, leaner form. The slice of pale skin exposed between the pants and the shirt she wore had him jerking his eyes back up to her face, only and just barely able to keep himself from flushing at what could easily have become outright ogling. And as such, disrespect.

“I am,” he told her, smiling so widely at her he thought his cheeks might hurt if he did it for very long, reining himself in hard to instead nod and smile more politely at her. As difficult as he found it at that moment. He held out a hand to her, “It’s in my room at the moment, but that’s me. It’s good to meet you, Lady Sif.”

[bornagoddess]

The very same way Thor had told his Midgardian companions about his Asgardian ones, he had done so the other way around. It was part of the reason why Sif had began to see Midgardians in a new light, much different from the one she had been raised to adopt. He had spoken at length of the Captain's honor, his sense of good and evil - unwavering, but not inflexible, how he had taken strategic lead in New York and worked hard to keep the people safe as possible. A hero of legend, in every sense of the word.

If the Captain had been looking, Sif had not noticed. Even if she had she wouldn't have held it against him, as she was aware of how ridiculous she looked. It was fine, for the moment, but later Sif might just have to ask Natasha for some currency. Or bring her own clothes back, if she found her door in the meantime.

The Captain had a pleasant smile, a soft one that Sif had to admit she did not find in many men who made war their business. It was a simplified way to put it, she was aware, but it suited him fine. Like she had done with Natasha, Sif grabbed his forearm instead of shaking his hand. It was something she did with comrades at arms, made no sense to greet him in any other way. Sif nodded in earnest agreement at his pleasure to meet her. "I have heard many marvellous things about you and your shield, Captain. You must give me opportunity to examine it closely." She asked.

[captain_rogers]

Looking back on it, Steve could no longer so easily understand why he had been so reluctant to call the other Asgardian his friend. Not as he had distrusted the man for his alien nature or his strength, not even that he wouldn’t have trusted the other man with his back in battle. In those earlier days out in the world it had seemed easier to cling to the past long gone, to live with the ghosts of those he had lost without honoring them as he should have by continuing on with his life. Certainly, he owed Thor a drink, although he doubted that the man’s good nature would see him offended for an unintended slight that had happened only in the confines of Steve’s own head.

And when it came to the woman herself, he had to admit that he was curious. Aside from her obvious beauty, and wasn’t that enough to threaten to turn his tongue into knots, Steve remembered that in Thor’s descriptions of his shield-brothers and of Sif that women rarely, if ever, became warriors. He was, quite obviously, the last person who might question why someone would want to go out and fight, and he had known far too many woman who were both independent and capable to doubt her ability, but he was curious all the same. The thought might have been driven momentarily from his head with a glance down at her legs, but when she either did not notice or let his look pass by unremarked, he decided he would wait until a chance in conversation allowed him to bring up the topic and hope he didn’t manage to offend her in some way when he asked.

He gripped her arm securely, remembering Thor’s greetings and farewells, and did no disservice to her by leaving his grip limp before he released her.

The compliment failed to surprise him only as he understood it would have been Thor’s enthusiasm behind those stories. He nodded at her interest, agreeing easily. “Of course, and I’d love to see you in action. I’ve seen the way that Thor fights but I have to imagine your style’s a little…different.”

[bornagoddess]

When the Captain moved his gaze over her legs, Sif noticed. She had not before, but then she had not really been looking that closely. Now she was, and she hadn't said anything only because it simply was not an issue. A warrior like Sif, a woman in a man's world (so to speak), she was used to getting looks: both of appraisal and something more carnal, though sometimes the two had been known to mix. She was used to it, welcomed and reciprocated it, even. It was a natural thing. When the Captain moved his gaze back up to her face he found Sif smiling, eyes wide.

His grip on her arm - and hers on his - was a testament to how the Captain was everything he appeared to be, physically speaking. It was strong but not overly dominating, and held with her own for as long as she had wanted it to. Sif suspected his fighting style was similar as well. He did not walk into the battlefield arms wide to take the enemy down as he walked. No, that was definitely Thor. Sif wondered how they worked in the battlefield. Natasha she had placed; the infiltrator, exploiter of failures in the enemy's overall disposition on the battlefield. She could easily imagine her new friend disappear only to emerge well behind enemy lines seconds from removing their major resource from the field. The Captain, though, could as much be at the forefront as he could give orders, strategize, infiltrate as well. She could easily see his versatility, and it was interesting. Was Thor taking orders from him? He wasn't good at following them, not particularly, but he wasn't keen on giving them either. That only made Sif more curious.

"I would promise you a great view of my next battle, if I knew where and when that would be fought. But we can arrange for a sparring session, provided I am still here in the future." She offered, smile in place. "Well, I don't have a hammer and I cannot fly with it, so yes, my style is different. I work with a buckler and a double-ended sword; it is very useful for shifting ranges if necessary, from short to medium - even long if I am of a mind to throw the sword instead of fighting with it. But your shield," Sif's eyes shone with awe. "I hear it blocks impact, I hear it can be thrown and returned to your hands. I cannot imagine but I would like to."

[captain_rogers]

Ninety-five, he had told Natasha. Not dead.

Despite the fact that she had already shown that her strength was at least equal to his own, if not stretching far beyond it if Thor and Loki stood as any representation of their kind, it was respect and not fear that assured that his eyes did no more than flick down the length of her legs. While his respect for Thor and the knowledge of the blond Asgardian as their mutual comrade and friend was a layer within his thoughts, his primary concern was of the respect he held for all women, first and foremost. He was too much his mother’s son to not consider his actions in that lens, and when his eyes caught hers and the width of her smile, he ducked his head in a measure of embarrassment, even as he could not help but grin himself.

His was an appreciation built of a love of the aesthetics of women as much as the reality and its appeal to more masculine instincts, but, as always, he faltered in the face of a woman with a fierce smile and sharp eyes.

As she spoke instead of battle and the more familiar grounds of physical competition and of weapons, he was swept easily up in her enthusiasm for the subject and the way her whole face brightened as she spoke. There were few he could speak of as equals when it came to offense or defense or the language of war, and while he knew too well that war had cost him more than he could have already imagined, there was still the easiness of comparing stories and strategies with a fellow warrior. “It’s nothing like Thor’s hammer,” he demurred, though his love of his shield was immediate and unguarded as he spoke, “Which I - actually, I don’t know how that works, but with the shield it’s more about finding the angles and how you throw it.”

“We can definitely do a sparring session.” Steve smiled widely at her, “I’ll bring my shield if you bring your sword. I’d be interested to see how it is in action.”

[bornagoddess]

It was amusing, because by Sif's standards even a ninety-five year-old was a child. And yet, he was considered too young looking for his age, an impossibility even. Of course that all depended on their respective age patterns, but still. He was impressive, both as a youngling and as an old man.

"Nothing is like Thor's hammer, I am fairly sure." Sif offered. Not many weapons were forged in the hearts of dying stars and given magical properties. In the right hands, however, even the flimsiest of them could make a difference. And neither Sif's nor Steve's were flimsy in the least. When he admitted to not knowing how her style of sword worked, Sif smiled. "I could show you. The SHIELD agent Melinda May tried it once, though she did not fight with it." She preferred her hands, if Sif remembered correctly. Fierce warrior, she was. Steve's explanation of how he worked his shield changed Sif's smile from polite admiration to mildly aroused enthusiasm. "You mean to say you consider your space and position relative to the adversary and throw the shield accordingly to ensure maximum damage and success? And you perform calculations in mere seconds to ensure it comes back to you. You employ mathematics." Fewer things got Sif's heart racing like good, sound, strategy. Especially when it took only seconds to establish. "You are a most impressive Migardian, Captain."

She was more blunt force, deflecting until an opening presented itself, then fighting them until they couldn't fight back. So on, and so forth, sometimes at the same time. Not that this did not also require strategy, but it was fairly straightforward. And it worked; Thor could vouch for that. Sif smiled brightly at the Captain's acceptance of her suggestion. "I am honored you accept!"

[captain_rogers]

The world had changed its shape while Steve had slept, made into that brave new world he had woken to. He remembered the stories told in snippets during the war of people with abilities beyond that of human capabilities, had caught glimpses of the same himself and sworn never to reveal those such strengths or speeds belonged to. And still he had never anticipated the men and women he met in the future he’d been thrown into, the capabilities of technology familiar enough but turned to alloyed suits and flying ships of daunting size, the ferocity of alien monsters come to call in New York, the powers of those who called themselves the gods of Asgard.

Where he had been before too daunted by it all to even know where to begin understanding these radical turnovers in his world, Steve had learned to find the familiar in the strange. The improvements in the gaping absences before. More than the rudeness of people and the high hemlines of the skirts he saw on the streets, there were vaccines that wiped out diseases that had devastated so many he had known, camaraderie among the strange individuals who had collected themselves as the Avengers before going their separate ways.

The strangeness of speaking to a woman from an alien world took an easy back seat to the brightness of her smile and the understanding that threaded through each word that they met there as equals. That no matter the worlds they might have come from or the capabilities of their peoples, they found a common ground in weaponry and of building battle strategy around the capabilities of arm and shield in equal measure. Truthfully, as he tipped his head at her compliment, shoulders easy and loose where he stood, it had become stranger to be seen as being more than a soldier who followed orders and thought no further than that. That someone understood that the use of his shield was not a lazy or violence-abhorrent style, and that neither was it as simple as flinging it as he would a frisbee and it returning out of some inherent magical or technological property, caught him entirely off guard.

“That’s…it exactly, actually.” His brows were somewhere around his hairline, though not in having underestimated her. Never that. He smiled again at her suddenly, watching her intently for a moment before he remembered their surroundings and asked, “Would you like me to show you how to use the bags, or take a run or something?”

[bornagoddess]

It was not so strange to Sif. While protecting the Nine Realms she had met and fought alongside many people from other realms, always invariably finding similarities where differences seemed endless. Nothing felt like home, of course, but that did not mean Sif could not find hints of home wherever she stepped foot in. It was a curious thing, the camaraderie one found with soldiers and fighters all over the realms. Even despite their differences - and oh, there were many - it had been that common thread that had warmed her to Natasha so quickly. A soldier took many forms, they were but different ones. Just like the Captain. She found it easy to speak to him not only because he had seen much of the fantastical things Sif had all but grown with, but also because there was a common understanding connected to what they did for a living, as it were. Discussing weaponry and fighting styles had made her bond with many people - Agent Melinda May having been the most recent one that she could remember - and so this discussion of shields with the Captain was not strange at all. It was welcomed, in fact. This was such a strange place to her that she feared - even though she had met people here from her own home, from her own past - she would never acclimate fully.

Sif knew what he did with his shield, what he really did, only because despite appearances she wasn't a grunt. Or she was, but a grunt wasn't always mindless, a mere meat-head you gave a spear to and sent stabbing at the enemy. There had been countless hours of training, absolutely countless, before Sif was deemed even adequate. There were calculations present in every movement, every escape, every contingency. If it was more muscle memory than pure calculation now was only because she had had thousands of years to practice. It had become second nature like breathing. And only because, wherever she was, whatever the fight, mathematics and physics (whatever Asgardians called it) remained, give or take the slight adjustment, delightfully the same. Sif did not know the theory behind them. She had never thought to ask or learn. She simply knew she owed her life to them.

The Captain's raised brow garnered an amused chuckle out of Sif, her surprise almost mirroring his own. "What else would it be?" She replied, still amused. "As though I do not calculate exactly what force I ought to employ to thrust my sword and at what angle to garner the result I need?" Her semblance was one of knowing, as if to tell him he had found a kindred spirit there. Of course her shield did nothing his did, but then hers wasn't to be employed as he did his. Hers had as main function buying her the time she needed to really inflict damage. "Well, I like to think I know how to use the bags, but as evidenced by recent events, clearly I do not." She replied, amused. "Have you had trouble with them like I did?"