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 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?"