They said they were just friends. Friends who lived under the same roof, eat, train and spend almost every waking moment together. Friends who happened to go to the same mission, fight the same enemies and share the joy of victory together. They said they were just friends - who happened to hug, gaze and brush each other's paw so much that even Shifu had lost count.
But after their return from the Secret Panda village, Mantis was pretty good at ignoring the never-ending Dragon Warrior & Master Tigress show by this point.
As the team recovered from Kai's attack and everyone started to chill the hell out, Po and Tigress' interactions went from occasionally suggestive of something other than just friendship to overt, like, growling (not the threatening kind) to pinning (not the Kung-Fu training kind). They flirted, they gazed, they found stupid reasons to touch each other.
It was sickening.
So over the last few months, Mantis and Crane had escalated their coping mechanism when it came to Po and Tigress' super obvious little dance. Mantis had gone from exchanging pointed looks with Crane to audible sighs of irritation while Crane gave them exaggerated eye rolls.
Figured that the two lovebirds were way too preoccupied with each other to even notice.
The only real escape was just to ignore them. Po had been sharing a drop of his advance technique of achieving inner peace for months - tune out the rest of the world and just exist in his own space or some nonsense - but Mantis felt like an asshole standing around clearing his mind of clutter and listening to his own breathing. Or whatever stupid Inner Peace mantra he was supposed to be listening to.
But finally, out of self-preservation, Mantis learned to ignore the lovesick puppies and their pathetic attempts to pretend they were just friends and cohorts. He found his zen purely so he could stop witnessing their non-stop ineffectual flirting.
He got so good at it, actually, that he missed the beginning of the most ridiculous floor show to date, only tuning in to what was going on once Crane elbowed him. Mantis looked up from the tip of the spear he was working on and focused on those two knuckleheads.
They were standing way too close to each other (as always) and grinning into each other's faces. Tigress leaned one hip into her training bench, and Po loomed over her, crossing his now-muscular-arms (of course, because the-ever-so-humble-Dragon-Warrior could be a preening show pony sometimes) and still a little sweaty from his workout.
It was disgusting. And that was before Mantis figured out what they were talking about.
"No," Tigress said, shaking her head. "Firmness is important. Always, Po - firmer is better."
Mantis' eyebrows jumped up and he gave Crane a look that said, What the hell are they talking about?
"My muscle is firm," she told him, smirking a little bit. "Isn't that a good enough example?"
"No Tigress," Po shot back, "Your muscle is hard, which is expected seeing how hard you've trained. That's why we called you hardcore." He rested one of his hand on his elbow, drumming his claw on his chin contemplatively. "You know… I don't think I like hard things." He flushed a little, and if Mantis weren't completely over these kinds of conversations, he'd probably find his ability to talk in unintentionally perverted circles kind of endearing. "I mean," he continued, because why leave things be when he could just keep making it worse, "hard can certainly be good in… appropriate situations. But not in bed."
Mantis choked on air and started to cough, eyes wide.
Po shook his head a little, and Mantis was pretty sure Tigress was making that smug face that she only ever directed at him. Crane laughed silently, his shoulders shaking and one wing pressed over his mouth.
"Wait," Po continued, somehow flustered, "Of course, in bed hard is good. Just, not in my bed," he finished.
"Are you sure?" Tigress countered back; her smug grin had grown in size.
Mantis was pretty sure he was going to pass out if he kept trying to suppress his laughter. He carefully put down the spear he'd been working on and turned all the way around and hop to the nearest stool.
"Tigress. Hard mattresses are bad. Other bed-related… hard things… are great." Po cleared his throat, biting his lip to contain whatever other terrible clarifications his brain wanted to spit out. "Oh… man!" he mouthed to himself.
Tigress was smiling that wide, delighted smile at him. "I believe you," she said, so suggestively that it kind of made Mantis uncomfortable. There were some things he did not need to associate with his temperamental ex-leader. Yuck.
"So you need something," Tigress concluded, "firm in your bed. For your bed - mattress. You need a firm mattress."
Mantis couldn't take much more of their weird-ass mating ritual, so he plastered a fake smile on his face and asked, "What about a hammock?"
Po jumped a little, and even Tigress, Master-Always-Be-Aware-of-Surroundings, flinched when she realized, yes, other people were actually being forced to witness this trainwreck.
"A hammock?" Tigress echoed, eyebrows raised in Mantis' direction. And then she narrowed her eyes at him.
Po shot Mantis an inscrutable look and turned right back to Tigress. Because of course he did. "I always kind of wanted a hammock," he teased. "Just like the one in the Secret Panda Village." That was about as insane as pulling her tail, Mantis decided.
"Hammock sounds terrible," Crane butted in quickly. "Every time you move, the whole thing reacts and pushes back."
"You mean like this?" Po shifted his body, probably miming something relatively innocent like hip-checking the theoretical hammock, only, of course, that's not what Tigress, Crane or Mantis got from his demonstration. Considering the context. "I don't think it's bad at all. In fact, it's felt kind of awesome! Right guys?"
Tigress made a strange wheezing noise, while Mantis stared at him, dumbfounded. Was it possible the Kung-Fu genius didn't understand that discussing beds and movements and hardness was level ten flirting?
"Right," Tigress managed finally, her voice full of humour and maybe a little bit of lust. "I've never slept in a hammock," she added, and oh, that little pause before she said "slept?" Mantis was totally about to gag. Tigress leaned even closer to Po, which Mantis hadn't thought was possible without them actually making out, and said, "And I bet that thing won't even last a day."
"Oh, Mighty Oogway," Crane murmured, his wing moving up to cover his eyes. "I can't believe this is still happening."
"Right?" Mantis answered. Because seriously.
"Let me know when it's safe to look," Crane added, and when Mantis glanced over, he was massaging his temples with his eyes resolutely shut.
As usual, Tigress and Po were paying them no attention. She pointed at Po's old, slightly bent bed and gave him a sceptical look. "If you think we're going to buy a piece of flimsy fabric when something far more sturdy and thicker clearly struggles, you are an insane crazy person."
Po leaned even closer to her that their muzzle nearly touched. "It's cute that you think you can stop me."
Tigress laughed right in his face. "Right. With what money are you buying this fabulous hammock? Remember that you still owe me hundred yuan to buy that collectables action figures from the antique fair."
"Hmmm," Po answered, uncertain.
Mantis snickered and exchanged amused looks with Crane. The oppressive sexual undercurrent to everything between Po and Tigress was exhausting, but the other two members of Furious Five heartily appreciated watching all slim built of Master Tigress take the high and mighty Dragon Warrior down a few pegs. Repeatedly.
"That's what I thought," Tigress answered smugly. "I'm buying you a bed. A real bed. A bed in which you can do all the things you need to do in a... You know what?" she interrupted herself, one paw held up in the air. "Let's just stop there. No hammocks. You need your body in peak physical condition, and that's a job for a nice, firm..."
"Oh, my giddy aunt," Mantis grumbled.
"...mattress," she finished, pausing to glare quickly at Mantis and Crane. "And that's enough from you two!" she added.
"I don't think I should let you buy me a bed," Po protested, but even Mantis could tell he wanted it pretty badly.
The bed. And, perhaps some fun sexytimes with Master Tigress.
"I challenge you to do 100 round of the training routine. If you were faster than me, hammock it is. If you didn't, you'd be asleep and kissing my toes," she said.
Po sighed in exasperation. Really, really fake exasperation. "Fine," he said. "I'll let you buy me a bed."
Mantis rolled his eyes. What a shocking plot twist.
"And a pillow," Tigress added, beaming now, which was very strange coming from her. "And sheets. Now go shower and get dressed," she ordered. "You're all sweaty."
Mantis had - seriously - about fourteen jokes he wanted badly to make, but Crane elbowed him more sharply this time.
"Fine," Mantis muttered. "But this better be it. I'd rather walk in on them three or four times than be subjected to more of this."
Crane glanced at the lovesick pair and turned back to Mantis, a little desperately. "It has to be it, doesn't it? I mean, they're going bed shopping."
Mantis took the steps up on the Thousands Steps two at a time, unreasonably excited for a work day without those two fools simpering at each other. Because they went bed shopping, which is not a platonic thing you do with someone. Or at least it isn't if you spend at least half of your day beaming at the other person like a half-wit.
So finally - finally - Po and Tigress reached what Mantis had to assume was their boiling point, debating what kind of bed to buy with matching, goofy grins. And then they'd offered distracted waves to Mantis and Crane and left on their bed-buying mission.
And to have a whole lot of making out that led to…. (fill in the blanks). Mantis could only hope.
Which was a little weird, actually - being so invested in the love life of his new dopey dumpling addict teacher and the formerly grumpy and disapproving leader of Furious Five. But if them knocking boots meant he and Crane could get some training done in peace? Well, then Mantis wished them all the best and hoped that Shifu wouldn't found out.
And maybe to take a day off and get all the gross lovey-dovey stuff out of their systems.
When Mantis reached the threshold of the student barrack, he didn't see a blushing Po or a smug Tigress. (Or a smug Po and a blushing Tigress, which would've been about seventeen times more amusing.) Instead, Crane was standing beside his dormitory door, wings crossed and glaring at something Mantis couldn't see.
"Hey," Mantis greeted.
Crane simply grunted.
"Where's the happy couple?"
Crane looked over his shoulder and sighed heavily. "Come here."
Mantis took a step and then stopped, throwing his appendage up in the air to ward off...
"They're not, like….currently banging over there, are they?" Because he couldn't hear anything to suggest sexual shenanigans, but Crane looked pretty pissed off. "I know I said I'd rather walk in on them, but I was..."
"Would you just come look," Crane ordered gruffly and pointed at Po's bedroom.
Somewhat reluctantly, Mantis moved to Crane's side and looked down at a single sized wooden bed (decent size for one panda… nothing more, nothing less), perfectly made up with boring-ass, utilitarian sheets and one pillow.
Mantis blinked. "Wow."
"Yeah," Crane sighed.
Mantis shook his head slowly, feeling kind of disappointed, because….
"Tigress has no game."
"What?" Crane turned a puzzled look his way.
"They debate the firmness of mattresses until she gets him to let her buy him a bed," Crane said. "A bed. And then she bought him something worse than Shifu's bedroom." You don't seduce a guy by reminding him of his dictator-like teacher. Unless he's a freak or something.
Crane seemed to be considering Mantis' point for a moment, giving the bed a measuring look. "Okay," he conceded, "but let's not pretend that she's the one with the problem here."
"Oh, they both have problems," Mantis agreed. Like being total dumbasses, apparently. "He's stubborn as a mule and she's completely oblivious."
"No, she's not," Crane protested. "That girl doesn't have her hands all over me or you the way she does Po. I mean, she hugged him man! The closest thing she did to a hug on me was in the Training Hall. And that's involving me gasping for air."
Mantis considered that. Tigress was the most proficiently trained Kung Fu Master in the team for sure, but aside from patching them up, she only ever touched Mantis and Crane during training and in a context of a fight. Meanwhile, she and Po basically foreplayed their way around the Training Hall every day, so maybe Crane was right.
"Okay," he agreed, "but they spent hours testing mattresses and still nothing?"
Crane shrugged. "Maybe? I mean, this bed doesn't look slept in, so let's hope..."
The floorboard creaked, and Mantis turned to find the subjects of their speculation walking into the quarter. Po was in full chatter mode, filling Tigress in about... something, and neither of them even seemed to notice their teammates until they were maybe ten feet away.
"Hi, guys!" Po greeted, all smiles and cheer. Mantis narrowed his eyes, looking for any sign that he'd had a really good, really long night. No visible hickeys, no overtired smiles. "Oh," he said, glancing past them. "You saw the bed?" he grinned. "We compromised."
"Indeed," Tigress confirmed with a strange twinkling in her eyes.
"Oh, Oogway," Crane muttered, even as Mantis came to the same conclusion. These two fools certainly didn't compromise the way they really should've. Darn it.
Tigress frowned. "What? It's a perfectly good bed!" she argued. All the sparkly look in her eyes was gone in an exchange with a look that could kill. "I mean, did you sleep okay last night?" she turned to Po.
Po smiled at her, still with that panda-cub-who-wants-a-dumpling look. And Mantis sighed so loudly he almost missed Po's response: "I slept great, Tigress. Thanks again."
"Seriously?" Mantis practically shouted. Po and Tigress turned coordinating wide-eyed looks of confusion his way, while Crane elbowed him, like, excessively hard it nearly sent him hurling past through the dorm wall. "Ouch," Mantis protested.
Crane gave him the eyebrows of judgment, and Mantis backed down.
"Sorry," he apologized. "I… twisted my appendage." It was a terrible cover, worse than Po's usual bullshit, but neither Po nor Tigress seemed interested in pursuing the topic when they could just beam stupidly at each other some more.
"I can't take much more of this," Mantis told Crane. "I'm pretty sure this is actual torture."
Tigress glanced over at them, blinking a little bit. "Torture? What? Something I need to know about?"
"Yes, actually," Mantis said, even as Crane shook his head. Messing with Tigress could well spell out death sentence.
Next to her, Po looked puzzled. "What's going on?"
"Apparently nothing," Mantis answered. And he just couldn't deal with another night of this. "I'm gonna..." He jerked his claws toward the door. "We get nights off, right? Like, Kung Fu Master sick days or something?"
"Yeah," Po answered slowly. "You sure everything's okay?" Even Tigress who usually voiced out her displeasure on any indication of slacking attitude seemed to be strangely compliant.
Mantis smiled tightly. "Everything is status quo."
Po gave him that compassionate look, which made Mantis feel a little guilty for being so angry. But he was angry on his behalf, kind of. Or at least on his libido's behalf (but if you have read of Panda libido, it's practically non-existent). Which, again, kind of gross since he was like a brother to him.
He closed the distance between them and placed a paw lightly on his tiny shoulder, "If you need to talk, I'm here."
Okay, well, he asked, and that's really all the invitation Mantis needed to offer his opinion. He opened his mouth to blurt out something like would you two just bang already?, but Crane wrapped one of his wings around his shoulders and propelled him towards the exit. "He's fine," Crane said, and Mantis was pretty sure his feet weren't even touching the ground as Crane moved him. "Just needs to clear his head."
"Can we just lock them in a room together until they figure it out?" Mantis asked, half-kidding, but also half-not-kidding. Because it wasn't the worst idea in the world. Even if they didn't figure anything out, he and Crane would be spared hours of their irritating interactions. "A room with just a bed?"
Crane shook his head. "They'll figure it out soon," he said, and it sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as Mantis.
"You better be right," Mantis said, pausing with one foot on the lowest stair. "I have mastered Master Snake hypnotizing trick, and with a dose of that strong alcohol in Shifu's bedroom and a hint of aphrodisiac..."
"Mantis..."
"Desperate times, man," he interrupted. "I can't take much more of this. You can't either."
"Just go," Crane said, gesturing down the village. "I'll see if we can meditate and ask Master Oogway for a wise counsel how to handle these two idiots."
Mantis took two steps, then turned back. "Locked room with a bed and no clothes," he said. "Feel free to include that alternative when you give him your little pep talk."
So Mantis took the night off. And if he spent a little time researching what kinds of locked-room options were out there on the off chance he actually needed to resort to desperate measures, well, who could blame him?