Finding a time to get together with Catra Stone to choreograph an unarmed duel was like pulling teeth. It wasn't as if she didn't have any free time; Adora was the one who went home on the weekends. No, it was more that Stone didn't want to get together with Adora and kept making up as many excuses as she could. Adora fretted; how were they ever going to do well at all if they didn't act like partners? What if this was Stone's newest plan to get her thrown out of GWMA or make her look like a fool (even at the cost of Stone's own performance)?
Drill team practice happened only twice a week for the first few months of the semester, then became more frequent as the competition loomed closer. So it only made sense to take advantage of these weeks before spring break, before everything revved up. Adora was glad that she had Scorpia and Entrapta nearby at every practice; she felt like they provided a buffer between her and Stone's wrath.
Her annoyance at Stone's reluctance to practice together came to a head one day at the beginning of February when Huntara asked her for a rundown of the unarmed duel.
"What have you two cooked up so far?" Huntara asked, untying her shoelace and pulling off her boot for polishing.
"So here's the thing," said Adora, grimacing for what was to come. "We haven't worked on it yet."
"Not at all? It's been a month."
"I know…"said Adora, trying not to roll her eyes. "Every time I propose a time to practice, Stone has an excuse. I don't stay on campus on the weekends, so that's out."
"Sounds like you might have to do that if Stone is too busy during the week."
Adora sighed. She was afraid it would come to this. "Yeah."
"I need to see at least a 'first draft' of your move set by the end of this month. I don't care if you have to lick her boots clean for a year, you are gonna have to persuade her to work with you. A great unarmed exhibition could set GWMA apart."
"Yes, ma'am," said Adora, saluting half-heartedly.
The next day after morning inspection, Adora, grumbling to herself, approached the door of the cadet captain's quarters with a raised fist.
Before Adora could knock, however, she heard a grunt, then something smashed against the wall. Taken aback, Adora thought about retreating and trying again another time, but she didn't know when else she'd get so close.
Against her own judgement, Adora knocked and almost instantly the door was wrenched open; Stone must have been standing just behind it.
"What?" Stone seethed, eyes wild.
"Sorry if I'm interrupting something," Adora said, trying to ignore the fight-or-flight reaction happening in her body.
"What?" Stone said again, more insistent.
"We really need to get together to work on our unarmed duel. Tell me when you're free and I'll make sure to be there."
"Any time Saturday or Sunday," Stone said without hesitation. "Or does that cut into your precious family time?"
"You name the day and time and I'll be there."
Stone eyed Adora, visibly trying to calm her own breath.
"Sunday at noon. Let's do the quad, it's supposed to be nice out."
Before Adora could give verbal confirmation, Stone had slammed the door in her face.
Adora spent the first part of the weekend half dreading and half anticipating their practice session on Sunday. Octavia must have noticed something was off with Adora because she brought up her daughter's distant stare at dinner the day before.
"I'm just thinking about drill practice," said Adora. It was true, she was. But she was mostly thinking about how the next day was going to go with Stone.
Adora had postponed the Best Friend Squad's usual Friday FaceTime call so that she could do some research and watch a few unarmed competition pieces on YouTube. The better duels worked well because the two cadets were in complete sync, like they could read each other's minds. Adora highly doubted she could ever click with Stone like that. Not because they weren't capable but because Stone was so resistant to any sign of goodwill from Adora. If it wasn't for Hordak's command that they work together on the unarmed exhibition she would have given up trying to befriend Stone long ago. But circumstances kept throwing them together; they couldn't get rid of each other no matter how hard they tried.
It was with those thoughts floating around her head that she drew near Stone on Sunday at noon. The cadet captain was once again barefoot; it was February and not exactly warm, though the sun was out. Stone watched Adora approach, arms crossed.
"Hi," said Adora, wondering how long it would take for Stone to insult her.
Not long. "I'm surprised you're not late," Stone said with a sniff, inspecting those claw-like fingernails. Adora had never thought twice about those fingernails, but they had to be rebelliously longer than regulation.
"Nope!" replied Adora, forcing a smile. She would be damned if this turned into another fight prematurely. "How has your weekend been?"
"Fucking great, I've been here the whole time," said Stone bitterly. "Let's get this over with."
"Okay," said Adora, trying not to be offended that Stone hadn't asked how Adora's weekend had been too. "Do you have any ideas about how we should start off for the duel?"
"I know what I was going to do for my solo but beyond that I don't know or care."
"Okay…"
Adora knew this was going to be hard but she truly had her work cut out for her.
"I watched some YouTube videos of unarmed duels and found-" Adora started, but Stone cut her off.
"Anyone who puts their competition footage on YouTube isn't even good, they just want attention."
"What is your problem?" said Adora, finally losing it. "I'm trying my hardest to work with you."
"Has it crossed your blonde brain that I don't want to work with you?"
"Well you're not exactly a joy to be around either, Miss Cranky-Pants."
Stone scoffed. "Did you just call me cranky-pants?"
"Yes, because you are. Can't you just… Chill? For one second? I want to be your friend but you keep pushing me away."
"You don't want to be friends with me," said Stone lowly, staring at the grass below her feet.
"How do you know? You haven't stopped picking fights with me long enough to ask."
There was a pause, then Stone looked up to meet Adora's eyes.
"It's probably not appropriate for your cadet captain to be friends with you."
"Who cares?" said Adora, restraining a groan. "Beyond the uniforms and the marching and saluting we're all just teenagers in high school. There's more to life than obstacle course records and drill team competitions."
"You don't know anything about me," said Stone, but before Adora could retort she moved on. "So what did you see on these shitty YouTube videos?"
Adora took the hint and dropped the subject. She felt as though she'd gotten farther with Stone than she'd thought possible.
Adora had Stone lay out the solo she had planned. It was good; Stone would have done well at the competition performing this routine. The best idea Adora could come up with was just to compliment Stone's move set with a mirrored version of her own, moving in and out of Stone's plane. She could tell Stone approved of the idea when her scorn was only lukewarm.
"I guess if that's the best you could come up with, cadet," said Stone, crossing her arms again.
"Cool!" said Adora, grinning despite herself. "Same time next week?"
"Unless you want to try to get together sooner," said Stone.
"Oh, yeah we could do that," said Adora, not expecting such an invitation. It took everything in her to hide her surprise.
"You're going to need a lot of work to get on my level."
"Ha! Sure." Adora shook her head, laughing despite herself. Did Catra Stone really just make her laugh?
"Let's do Wednesday at six in the gym. If you can stand being in the same enclosed space as me."
Stone made to leave, but Adora caught her by the arm. "Hey Catra- Thanks for being nice to me for once."
Catra looked down at the hand on her arm, then back up into Adora's face. "Whatever, don't get used to it." She shook off Adora's grip and turned away, but not before Adora saw a corner of her lips give a tug. "It's not because I like you. It's because I don't want to look like an idiot at the drill competition."
"That's what they all say!"
Catra didn't bother to reply, so Adora just watched her back as she walked away, breathless from the absolute success of an interaction that was. She was honestly shocked at how well their practice session had gone. She had fully expected it to become another fist-fight. She had to make sure to keep up this momentum.
Catra had a new series of rhythmic claps to teach Adora on Wednesday. At first she acted like it was too complicated for Adora to pick up, but the amount of patience she used while going through the moves signaled to Adora otherwise. Maybe the Stone-hearted captain was capable of feeling positive things after all.
By the end of their session on Wednesday night, they had a solid move set. They had run it straight through twice before calling it quits and Adora was feeling pretty good about their progress. She happily reported to Huntara at Thursday night's drill practice that things were going as smoothly as they could. Adora was feeling confident that she was even chipping away at Catra's rugged exterior… that is, until they met again that next Sunday and Catra was once again incensed for reasons unknown to Adora.
"Hey, Catra!" said Adora upon entering the gym. It had snowed on Saturday so meeting in the quad would have been too frigid.
"Don't," snapped Catra immediately, fingers pressed into her temples as though Adora's presence alone gave her a headache.
"You okay? I have ibuprofen in my locker."
"I'm fine." Catra turned away, kicking off her boots. Adora knew by now that all the hard work put in by the cadet captain was done in bare feet.
"Did you have a good-"
"I never have a good weekend, so stop asking."
Adora was learning that this was the thing with Catra. Two steps forward, one step back. No wonder Scorpia was constantly worried about their friendship. Catra could give a girl whiplash going from icy to warm in one hang-out.
"I'm sorry," said Adora, not knowing what else to say. She decided on a jest. "Surely seeing my goofy face makes up for it though!"
She crossed her eyes, tongue hanging out.
"Stop that," said Catra but she actually sounded like she might laugh.
Adora elbowed Catra playfully but the cadet captain stepped away. "Why don't you ever have good weekends?"
"You don't want to hear about my life."
"If I didn't want to hear about it I wouldn't have asked."
For a moment Catra glared at Adora, as though it were a reflex she couldn't control. Then her face relaxed into a neutral expression.
"Let's just say that I'm not wanted at home on the weekends like you are."
Adora took a moment to process this.
"You can't mean that."
"I said what I said, okay? Why are we even talking about this?"
"Because you brought it up and I asked about it."
"Okay, wow. Duh! I mean, why do you want to know about it?"
"Because that's what friends do, share personal details about their lives."
"I'm not very good at that."
"I noticed."
A pause.
Adora held back a sigh. "Well I'm not going to force you to tell me things about your life. I just thought since we were becoming friends-"
"What? We're not becoming friends," said Catra quickly and Adora saw her beginning to retreat into herself once again.
"Okay, okay," said Adora, putting her hands up in defense. "I just thought maybe talking about it would make you feel better."
There was another silence as Catra sat heavily on the floor and began rolling up the cuffs of her pant legs. Adora had spent enough time around her to know that this stunt was just an excuse not to look Adora in the eye. She also knew that if she waited long enough, Catra might start to spill some of her life story. A couple of minutes of silence later and Adora was proved right.
"If you must know..." began Catra. Adora held her breath, not wanting to scare Stone away from the vulnerability Adora felt she'd waited months for. "My mom is literally evil."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, she's a bitch."
"That's not a very nice thing to say about your mom."
"So, the thing is that she's not my real, biological mom. She adopted me when I was twelve. Who knows, maybe my real mom was a bitch too, otherwise maybe she would have gotten her life together and kept me."
It all came out in a bitter rush, like Catra had been holding this all in for a very long time. Fleetingly, Adora wondered how much Scorpia knew about her best friend's background.
"That's… a lot," said Adora, at a loss for the proper response. Catra pressed on.
"Anyway, I was tossed from foster home to foster home until I got placed with Shadow Weaver. Even though I told the social workers that she was the last person I wanted to be adopted by, they wouldn't listen - probably because I had fucked up so many other homes. They didn't trust my judgement. When Shadow Weaver realized she'd made a mistake by adopting some trauma kid, she shipped me straight off to military school. She gets to say she's a parent but not actually do any parenting. She doesn't want me around, I only see her once a year and not even at Christmas. Not like I want to. I do just fine on my own, like I always have."
Adora didn't know what to say. For pressing so hard for Catra to share her story, Adora hadn't really expected such an info dump. But this is what she was good at, right? Helping people? But Adora was quiet for too long, and the moment to reply came and went.
Catra broke the silence. "Let's get this over with."
They began to practice, only talking about things that were relevant to the duel. The whole time Adora racked her brain for a response to the story she had basically yanked out of the cadet captain. She felt bad for thinking so, but this all made complete sense: Catra's rage, her dour moods, and her fierce independence and pride. And how fucking sad! To feel like you're not wanted by your own mom. Adora was willing to give this woman the benefit of the doubt, as Catra was also prone to hyperbole, but Adora felt she couldn't really pass judgement unless she met Shadow Weaver in person, which could be never for all Adora knew.
It took Adora until after drill practice that Thursday night to get up enough courage to propose her plan to Catra, a plan she had been formulating all week since hearing about what made the cadet captain tick.
When Adora pulled Catra into the hallways outside the locker room, she looked at Adora as though she feared was about to get jumped and left to bleed out on the sidewalk.
"Hey, just had a quick question for you," said Adora, struggling to get it out. Why was this so hard?
"You two coming?" asked Scorpia, poking her head into the hallway.
"Go on without us," said Adora, heart beating faster than it was given permission to.
"You got it," said Scorpia, winking toward Adora in the most embarrassingly obvious way. "See you back at building three!"
"What?" snapped Catra when Scorpia was gone, already collapsing physically and emotionally inward.
"I know you don't like weekends-" started Adora, but she was cut off.
"Oh, don't start this shit again. I told you, I don't want to talk about it."
Adora finished her sentence in a rush, desperate to get a word in before Catra tried to shut her down again. "I just wondered if you wanted to come have dinner at my house this weekend. My mom makes bomb lasagna."
Catra looked at Adora like she'd just said she was a crackhead.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No!" said Adora. "I thought it might be nice for you to not have to spend the whole weekend at GWMA by yourself."
"What makes you think I'm always by myself?" said Catra.
Huntara's voice drifted through the closed door to the locker room, reprimanding the stragglers.
"Well even so, it would probably be healthier to get away sometimes."
Catra scoffed. "Thanks but no thanks. I'm not some charity case."
And without a backward glance, Catra stalked away down the hall, pulled open the door, and was gone.
Friday at lunch, Adora intercepted Scorpia as the sergeant was scooping fruit salad onto her tray.
"Let's sit together today," said Adora, leading the sergeant over to a corner of the room that was devoid of prying eyes.
"Oh!" said Scorpia, looking longingly back over her shoulder to her usual empty seat by Catra, who didn't even notice that anything was amiss, deep as she was in conversation with another cadet captain.
Once settled, Adora set to her plan forthwith.
"How long have you and Catra been friends?"
"Oh, well let's see…" said Scorpia, unpeeling a banana. "We were in the same cadet captain orientation last year and became friends right away!"
"Hang on, you were supposed to be a cadet captain?"
"Oh no, sergeants also have to attend orientation since they are going to be second-in-command of each barrack, along with the captains."
"Oh," said Adora, mind reeling from all this new information. "How do sergeants and captains get put together?"
"The captains choose their sergeants. Catra picking me was just so neat!"
Adora couldn't help but smile at Scorpia's enthusiastic innocence. It seemed impossible that Adora had found the sergeant so intimidating her first couple of weeks. They were all just teenagers after all. Like she'd told Micah, these weren't the armed forces (not yet).
"Why are you asking about this?" said Scorpia, half the banana in her mouth now.
"I guess I am just looking for the humanity in Catra. A way to tame her. She can be…"
"An amazing role model?"
"Not exactly what I was going for."
"An inspiring cadet captain?"
"I was going to say, 'mean and intense,' but that works too."
"She's just misunderstood," said Scorpia, now beginning to shovel mandarin oranges into her mouth. Adora watched her chew and swallow with great difficulty, waiting for Scorpia to continue. "I'm not sure where you're going with this."
"Me neither, I guess," sighed Adora, watching Catra from across the room. Just looking for a break in the exoskeleton.