Fic: A Bunch of Fives (Iron Fist/Various, PG-13)
Title: A Bunch of Fives.
Author: Prochytes.
Fandoms: Iron Fist/Sense8/Elementary/Preacher (TV)/Doctor Strange (2016)/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
Rating: PG-13. Violence.
Characters/Pairing: Colleen Wing; Sun Bak; Joan Watson; Tulip O'Hare; Stephen Strange; Melinda May.
Disclaimer: Not mine, any of it.
Summary: Five people who have sparred with Colleen Wing, none of whom is Danny Rand.
Word Count: 500 (five drabbles).
A/N: Small spoilers for Doctor Strange and Sense8 to 1x03 “Smart Money is on the Skinny Bitch”.
1. Sun Bak.
Of all the night visitors, Sun fights most like Colleen herself. Her technique was polished in the dojo, then bloodied under guttering neon to the crowd’s roar.
Sun is Gifted. Sight beyond sight is as New York as thin-crust pizza these days, but Sun has something more. Sometimes, foreign idioms invade their shared vocabulary of strikes and blocks and holds: a Continental haymaker, maybe, or restraint moves that reek of cop. This always throws Colleen off her rhythm, which must be the point.
Colleen grits her teeth and reengages, putting on a show for the crowd that is not there.
2. Joan Watson.
One day, at Grand Central Terminal, Colleen dislodged the left canine of Sherlock Holmes. By a causal chain she does not interrogate, he therefore sends his partner to her for training. Like Holmes, Joan is basically a boxer. Colleen takes the bout to the floor as soon as possible.
Also like Holmes, Joan notices too much. Her gaze darts, even as they search for holds (scuff-marks on the threshold, bloodstain in the far corner, window still unrepaired). It pierces the guard on Colleen’s secrets; it pins her down.
Colleen never wins that fight, no matter how often Joan taps out.
3. Tulip O'Hare.
Tulip does not stand on ceremony, or on much else. It’s snarling groundwork thirty seconds after she stomps through the door. Tulip fights like a rube - a rube on meth. Colleen needs all her craft to keep that speed and savagery at bay.
Tulip is seemingly indifferent to fatigue, to pain, to the costs of her erratic guard, to purpling skin, to eyes forced shut by the swell of encroaching flesh. The meat holds no terrors for Tulip O’Hare. If she fears (hollow gaze on the obsequious shadows of their grapple), she fears the spirit.
Colleen can relate.
4. Stephen Strange.
There is a man with shaking hands. He did not train in the USA. His moves are (how shall we say?) reminiscent of others amongst Colleen’s acquaintance.
The world creases, a little, at his passing, if one has eyes to see, like silk at the touch of rain. The Iron Fist unclenched, perhaps, to shape the world, and not to smite it.
He is fast, with an enviable reach, and enough of a bastard to make that work for him; most vulnerable to counter-attack when he has just been clever. Pride is his sin.
He is not alone in that.
5. Melinda May.
The woman in black comes rarely. This is just as well; she does not believe in quarter. Colleen wears the white for this particular contest. Hokey symbolism is her life now.
Colleen stakes what she has of youth and strength and speed and hope. Sometimes, it is enough; often, not. The woman in black goes some way beyond knowing every trick in the book. She is the blank void of the endpapers.
Colleen fights on. She tries not to think that this is her future: a mind worn down by unrelenting marvels, until all that remains is edge. Always, on.
FINIS
Author: Prochytes.
Fandoms: Iron Fist/Sense8/Elementary/Preacher (TV)/Doctor Strange (2016)/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
Rating: PG-13. Violence.
Characters/Pairing: Colleen Wing; Sun Bak; Joan Watson; Tulip O'Hare; Stephen Strange; Melinda May.
Disclaimer: Not mine, any of it.
Summary: Five people who have sparred with Colleen Wing, none of whom is Danny Rand.
Word Count: 500 (five drabbles).
A/N: Small spoilers for Doctor Strange and Sense8 to 1x03 “Smart Money is on the Skinny Bitch”.
1. Sun Bak.
Of all the night visitors, Sun fights most like Colleen herself. Her technique was polished in the dojo, then bloodied under guttering neon to the crowd’s roar.
Sun is Gifted. Sight beyond sight is as New York as thin-crust pizza these days, but Sun has something more. Sometimes, foreign idioms invade their shared vocabulary of strikes and blocks and holds: a Continental haymaker, maybe, or restraint moves that reek of cop. This always throws Colleen off her rhythm, which must be the point.
Colleen grits her teeth and reengages, putting on a show for the crowd that is not there.
2. Joan Watson.
One day, at Grand Central Terminal, Colleen dislodged the left canine of Sherlock Holmes. By a causal chain she does not interrogate, he therefore sends his partner to her for training. Like Holmes, Joan is basically a boxer. Colleen takes the bout to the floor as soon as possible.
Also like Holmes, Joan notices too much. Her gaze darts, even as they search for holds (scuff-marks on the threshold, bloodstain in the far corner, window still unrepaired). It pierces the guard on Colleen’s secrets; it pins her down.
Colleen never wins that fight, no matter how often Joan taps out.
3. Tulip O'Hare.
Tulip does not stand on ceremony, or on much else. It’s snarling groundwork thirty seconds after she stomps through the door. Tulip fights like a rube - a rube on meth. Colleen needs all her craft to keep that speed and savagery at bay.
Tulip is seemingly indifferent to fatigue, to pain, to the costs of her erratic guard, to purpling skin, to eyes forced shut by the swell of encroaching flesh. The meat holds no terrors for Tulip O’Hare. If she fears (hollow gaze on the obsequious shadows of their grapple), she fears the spirit.
Colleen can relate.
4. Stephen Strange.
There is a man with shaking hands. He did not train in the USA. His moves are (how shall we say?) reminiscent of others amongst Colleen’s acquaintance.
The world creases, a little, at his passing, if one has eyes to see, like silk at the touch of rain. The Iron Fist unclenched, perhaps, to shape the world, and not to smite it.
He is fast, with an enviable reach, and enough of a bastard to make that work for him; most vulnerable to counter-attack when he has just been clever. Pride is his sin.
He is not alone in that.
5. Melinda May.
The woman in black comes rarely. This is just as well; she does not believe in quarter. Colleen wears the white for this particular contest. Hokey symbolism is her life now.
Colleen stakes what she has of youth and strength and speed and hope. Sometimes, it is enough; often, not. The woman in black goes some way beyond knowing every trick in the book. She is the blank void of the endpapers.
Colleen fights on. She tries not to think that this is her future: a mind worn down by unrelenting marvels, until all that remains is edge. Always, on.
FINIS