Diana shoved him back with her foot, lifting it up and landing a kick to his shoulder. She spun slightly kicking him in the abdomen again, using her legs to hit him so she could stay as far from him as possible. He stepped to her only to get kneed in the face once more. She dropped to the ground and swung out a leg, sending him to the ground. She leapt onto him and started punching him in the face, over and over. He brought his hands up to block her hits and was breathing heavily, although so was she.
She slowed down her assault on his unarmored face and he used this opportunity to flip them over. He grabbed her wrists and pinned her to the ground. Her head lay on the side, not looking at him and panting. He'd pinned her thighs down with his knees to avoid any repeats of earlier. He stared at her, just as exhausted as she was only a lot more beaten up. Her being distracted on the battlefield was one thing but she seemed to go into a frenzy state where her one goal was to destroy. It worried him a little bit.
He looked down at her and she still hadn't looked at him, she was still staring off to the side, calming herself down. She unclenched her fists that he had pinned above her head and breathed slowly, turning her head to face him then.
"I concede." She spoke up, staring at him. He climbed off her and offered her a hand, pulling her up off the floor.
"That was an interesting sparring session." The man she had identified as Locus commented, adopting a strict posture and arms resting behind his back like a soldier would.
"I'll say." Felix commented, sounding a little bitter and a lot less cheery than he had before.
"I was far too distracted today. Behaviour like that on the battlefield, and I'd be dead by now." New Hampshire commented, running a hand over her sweaty face.
'At least she can identify it.' Felix thought still annoyed at the thought of having this crazy woman in his charge. Still he understood why and he was making a lot of progress on the manipulation front so maybe keeping her around for a while wouldn't be so bad. "Well, we should be getting cleaned up and then heading to the mess hall for lunch. We can talk there about our mission."
"Yeah, I've been wondering when you were going to fill me in." Diana replied rolling her shoulders around in discomfort, her plan to seduce Felix into giving her armour back and helping her escape not going as well as she thought it would.
He lead her through to the locker rooms adjoined to the training room they'd just been in and she found spare clothes and clean towels. She got her stuff together, claiming one of the empty lockers. Out of the six only two had been claimed previously. She wandered around the locker room and poked her head around a wall the covered half the training room. Unlike the showers back at Project Freelancer there were only showering cubicles and no group shower which she supposed was a good thing. Unlike the showers at home, -well, back at the project it wasn't really her home, not anymore- where she had felt comfortable just stripping and using the shower, not caring what freelancer might catch a side boob glance or her naked butt cheeks. Here, was a much different story.
She went back around to her locker and grabbed her towel, stripping off her old clothes and wrapping herself up, headed to the shower cubicles. She opened the door to one of the empty ones, slightly farther down to the one that already hosted Locus and the one Felix had dumped some stuff into before wandering off. She closed the door behind her and hung up her towel on a hook on the inside, not interested in becoming the next victim to a hazing prank.
She was almost finished showering, righting out her hair when she noticed a large white hand reaching over the cubicle door, headed for the towel on the hook.
"Felix." She scolded.
"Aww." He replied and removed his hand. She tuned off the taps and wrapped herself in her towel and unlocked the door. Coming out to meet the sulking Felix. She stood in his field of vision as he perched on the locker room bench leaning on his fist. She quirked a brow at him as his eyes traveled up her body, water droplets trickling down her bronze skin.
"So," He started, snapping out of it and going over to his locket to start getting dressed. "Probably time start filling you in on our actual mission, huh?" He turned to smile at her softly, reaching into his locker and rolling on some deodorant.
"Probably." She breathed lightly, reaching into her own locker and combing through her soaking hair. She pulled out a regulation sports bra and regulation tight whiteys. She pulled her bra over her head, adjusting herself and then sliding her panties up her toned legs and over her rear.
"Uegh." Felix commented, as he looked over at the clothes she had just finished putting on. "Remind me to put you down on the exit list next time we dock so we can get you some decent fucking civvies." He shook his head and then looked her up and down. "Though you manage to make even those things look pretty cute." He flirted, going back to dressing himself.
Diana pulled on a new pair of shorts and dropped her t-shirt on the bench as she dried her arms and shoulders, which were newly wet thanks to her soaking hair. She bent down facing away from Felix as she towel dried her hair, trying to take off as much moisture as she could. She glanced behind her and noticed Felix eyeing up her ass and went back to drying her hair. She flipped her semi-dry and now messy hair over her shoulders and turned around, bra covered boobs on full display.
She ran her eyes over Felix's toned form. He had pulled the bottom half of his under armour on, fixing the armour panels to his legs and sat with his shirt off. She hadn't noticed him looking up to catch a glimpse at her chest only to find her admiring his built form.
"See something you like?" He quirked a brow and smirked.
"Could ask you the same." She grinned mischievously and bent down to pull her socks and shoes on, without pulling on her t-shirt. His eyes followed her chest as she dipped down and she heard him swallow. She smirked herself as she tied her shoelaces and reached into her locker, applying deodorant and combing through her long hair again. She pulled her damp hair into a ponytail and winked at Felix as she finally pulled her shirt on. She sat down on the bench beside him and stretched her long legs out in front of them, crossing her ankles and leaning back on her palms.
"So how about when you're finished getting dressed we head down to the mess hall and you tell me what this is all about?" She shot him a flirty smile then stood up leaving the locker room with a swing to her hips.
"So," Felix took another bite of his yet again stolen food. "You know about the civil war on Chorus, right?"
She nodded, eating her own food slowly, paying attention to what he was saying despite her tumbling tummy, ready to demolish the food in front of her after a tough workout.
"Well, the UNSC has tasked Charon Industries' mercenaries to go in and help out. They want this taken care of and all this in fighting put to a stop. Locus and I have already been down their a few times, tried to setup peaceful meetings between leaders to try and discuss a ceasefire, get this whole thing sorts out. Of course several of the leaders at these meetings were assassinated. The people hate each other. So instead, we have to just fight the good fight and end this thing the hard way."
"We're soldiers, killing people, this is the easy way. Getting them to play nice and get along is the hard way. You might be able to stop the war but they'll never stop hating each other. For as long as they live and the war is remembered there will always be animosity." She explained.
"That's an interesting way to look at things." He commented, taking a sip of his drink and placing his free hand next to hers, skin just touching.
"I guess you could say so, I've just been doing this almost half my life. I don't have the naive hope that all of this is going to be magically better when all of this is over." She responded, taking another bite of her food and "accidentally" brushing her hand against his. "I gave up on that dream years ago."
Felix took the opportunity to take her hand in his and trace small circles on her skin with his thumb. She looked up at him from under her eyelashes, blushing slightly as she thought about how right it felt. Then she mentally slapped herself for thinking that. Felix was a tool. A means for her escape. Nothing more, nothing less. She brought her attention back to the man in front of her and blushed at the way he was looking at her.
She was no stranger to men falling for her, she'd always been pretty but since she'd gotten all fucked up by the sleeveless insurrectionist she never thought someone would find her attractive again. With Tucker she'd just assumed it was an any port in a storm kind of deal, and he sure as hell wasn't going to get anywhere with her dear sister.
"So where's my armour?" She asked after a moment, deciding to be direct.
"Oh that? I forgot to ask you about scheduling a fitting appointment for a new suit of armour. Yours is fucked. I thought you knew." He replied seemingly honestly.
"How fucked?" She countered, entwining her fingers in his.
"Like it won't even turn on to tell us how fucked it is kind of fucked." He responded, continuing to rub circles in the space in between her thumb and index finger.
"Do you still have it?" Diana asked, taking a bite of her food in silent worry.
"Uh yeah, it's in the workshop. We can go down there afterwards if you really want a look at it. Not really sure if there's much you can do with it." He suggested, which suited her perfectly. It was however unfortunate that she wouldn't be able to use it. Although if the UNSC was just going to provide her with a new set of armour just like that then who was she to complain? Especially considering it would be a much newer model.
"You weren't kidding this really is fucked." Diana commented, looking over her tattered and scuffed armour. "I mean I've had to replace the chest plate before cause of the amount of times I've been shot, really got to stop doing that." She muttered the last bit for comedic effect.
"Yeah you might want to try and not do that." Felix responded, leaning towards her on his hands, weight resting on the bench in front of him. She looked up and him and something in her twigged.
"Hey.." She squinted at him. "You look familiar, like really fucking familiar."
"Are you hitting on me?" He quirked a brow at her.
"Shut up." She shook her head. "I swear I've seen you somewhere before, years ago."
"I think I'd remember if I'd seen a face as pretty as that before." He replied, flirtatious smirk calming his features.
"Now who's hitting on who?" She grinned back at him. She went back to her armour, the power unit on her back was completely fucked. The bullet that she'd been shot with had gone right through all the important bits and the back up power cell had dried up long ago. He power unit, might have had some salvageable parts had her own blood not flooded through it congealing and drying in it.
"Eugh." Felix said, looking at the power unit she'd pulled apart and thinking it was gross.
"I know right?" She responded, not looking up as she pushed the unit to the side. In the cabinet to her right she was able to see replacement parts and walked over to it, pulling out a new power unit and some connecting wires. Unlike dealing with her helmet, Diana was surprisingly competent in replacing these, having actually been paying attention in the mandatory class she'd taken.
"Whatcha doing all this for anyway, got some photos on here or something?" Felix asked, playing with her helmet.
"Sort of," She started, leaning closer to the part she was working on. "It's mostly photos, diary entries and videos from back at the project but I also managed to find my ex fiancé's old helmet after he died and I transferred all the the files."
"Ahh." He nodded, going over to grab some more tools and replacement pieces from the cabinet. "This part here will also need replaced then." He pointed out and moved to remove the piece, helping her repair her suit. She glanced up at him every so often, admiring his form as he concentrated. Also thinking about how sweet he was helping her when he could have just left her. She almost felt bad using him for this, almost. But she really had to get back to her friends, back to her mission to lay North to rest.
They'd been working on her amour in a comfortable silence for the past few hours. She's sanded down the paintwork a little and was in the process of spraying the original colour onto the pieces after covering over the visor. Felix stood by her, leaning on the bench, arms folded while she covered her mouth with an orange bandana he'd given her. She sprayed a coat of armour paint over her old pieces and closed the cap, heading to the sink to scrub off her hands while the paint was still wet.
"You'll still probably need some new armour." Felix commented when she handed him back his orange cloth. "That won't do much more than be a glorified ornament for your quarters."
"I know. It still means a lot that you helped me out." She replied on the walk back to her room. "You've been really good to me since I get here."
"It was nothing." He brushed it off and she stopped him in the hallway.
"No it wasn't" She stood up on her tiptoes and brought a hand up to cup his face. She pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek, lingering for a moment, hot breath on his neck. She pulled away and released his face. "It means a lot." She looked up at him through her lashes and spotted a thoughtful expression on her comrade's face. She started walking along the corridor again, him a few steps behind.
She made sure to sway her hips as she moved, tantalising him with every step. He caught up to her quickly, walking beside her with his hand hovering over her waist. He swallowed, hard.
"You know, when you were drunk the other day you asked me if I lived here." Felix started, sounding breathless and like he was grinning. She turned to him slightly. "You meant if my room was in the same corridor." He explained, actually grinning. "I'll show you where my room it, so you can come find me if you ever need anything."
"What are you expecting me to need?" She raised and eyebrow at him suggestively.
"Anything you need, come to me." He responded, purring in her ear, leading her further down the hallway than her quarters were. They turned a courier and halfway down it was his room. He unlocked it and she pressed him against the door. He opened it behind him and stepped back. She brushed a hand over his waist and he smirked at her, leaning down to her. She moved her lips up to kiss him and at the last moment he pulled away and closed the door in her face. He lips were inches away from the metal of his door and she chuckled. She knew she had been played that time. She stepped out of the doorway and into the hall, heading back to her room to get ready for an early night.
