1969
"Hey pretty boy, I wanna talk to you!"
The young lieutenant barely glanced over at the burly sergeant heading his way. Waving his hand nonchalantly, he turned back to the corporal he was talking to, telling the sergeant, "In a minute."
"Not 'in a minute'," the sergeant growled as he reached the lieutenant. "Now!" He grabbed the lieutenant's collar and brought the blond around face to face.
Momentarily startled by the sergeant's interruption, the lieutenant quickly recovered. "Mind taking your hands off me?" His voice was calm and light, but his eyes flashed a warning.
"You a lying cheat, and I don't like it!" The sergeant's voice was a low growl, and his grip on the lieutenant's fatigues was immovable.
The young lieutenant rolled his eyes. Biting back a retort, he instead made his voice hard and said, "Are you gonna let go of me, or do I need to make that an order, Sergeant?"
A few people had stopped to stare at the scene, the corporal had taken it all in and left quickly, but the sergeant wasn't backing down.
"You can make it whatever you want," he retorted simply. "Slugged officers before, and I don't have a problem doing it again."
The lieutenant gave a small shrug. "Well, in that case…" he trailed off, but then, faster than the sergeant could react, brought his knee up into the man's groin.
The blow caught the sergeant by surprise, and the split second his grip loosened was enough for the lieutenant to slide his way out of the big man's grasp and get off to the side. As the sergeant looked up to see where the blond went, a fist caught his jaw.
Growling, he swung his own fist. He didn't feel the normal force of contact, but when he saw the lieutenant's hand wipe blood from his lip, the sergeant knew he'd hit his mark, maybe not enough to knock him out but enough to make a point.
But the lieutenant's face broke into an infuriating smirk. "That the best you got?"
With a small roar the sergeant launched himself at the lieutenant. But the blond moved out of the way quickly, and sent his fist into the sergeant's ribs as he passed. That just infuriated the bigger man even more.
Though the sergeant had size and strength, the lieutenant had speed and agility. He managed to dodge most of the sergeant's swings, or was able to move away fast enough to not get the full impact of his hit. His own punches may not have been doing much, if any, damage to the bulky sergeant, but he took a calculated risk when the sergeant swung, and sent an uppercut into the man's nose.
Even as the sergeant's right hook landed at the same time, the lieutenant saw blood spurting from the other man's nose as he hit the ground. Unable to contain it while seeing stars in his vision, the lieutenant laughed.
Thankfully for him, the MPs chose that moment to show up. Because as they hauled the lieutenant to his feet after cuffing him, he caught the murderous glare the sergeant was sending his direction before they were led away.