MHA: Lust Quirk

She was already in Gym Gamma when I got there.

The mats were out, the regulation blue ones from the supply closet, laid end to end across the center of the floor. The overhead lights were on but the observation windows were dark. After hours. The building was empty except for the air conditioning drone and the sound of someone hitting a heavy bag.

Ochaco was hitting the heavy bag.

She was in her gym uniform, the blue-and-white tracksuit pants pushed up to her knees, a black compression shirt I hadn't seen before. Her hair was pulled back with a headband. She was hitting the bag with her forearms, not her fists. Elbows and forearms, close-range strikes, the kind of compact technical work that came from training under someone who knew what they were doing. Her feet were planted wide. Her hips turned with each strike. Her weight was low and centered and when the bag swung back at her she redirected it with a palm catch and hit it again from the other side.

Same brown hair. Same cheeks that stayed permanently pink. But her shoulders were lower than before the internship. Her hands hung ready at her sides between combinations instead of clasped behind her back or pressed together in the release gesture. She moved like she expected a punch and had already decided what she'd do about it.

The gym door closed behind me and she turned. Her face was damp with sweat and her breathing was controlled and she grinned when she saw me.

"You're late."

"By three minutes."

"Gunhead says three minutes is the difference between catching a villain and writing a report about how you almost caught a villain."

"Gunhead sounds fun."

She bounced on the balls of her feet. Her stance was wider than it used to be and she was rolling her wrists between strikes and the motion was loose and automatic, muscle memory that hadn't existed a week ago. "He's amazing. He made me hit him for four hours on the first day. My forearms were purple. I couldn't hold chopsticks at dinner."

"And now?"

She held her forearms out. They were toned in a way they hadn't been last week. Just harder. "Now they're not."

I dropped my bag by the wall and kicked off my shoes. The mats were cool under my feet. I was in gym clothes, shorts and a T-shirt, the bandages off my hands now because the scars had closed enough that the gauze was more habit than medicine. She was already moving to the center of the mat, her feet finding the surface, adjusting. Testing the grip.

"Rules?" I said.

"No Quirks for the first round. Just technique."

"You're the one with technique."

"Yeah." She smiled. "That's the point."

We squared up. She was shorter than me by half a head and lighter by a lot and none of that mattered because she dropped into a stance I'd never seen from her and her center of gravity vanished below my striking range. Her hands were open, palms forward, fingertip pads visible. An invitation and a warning.

She came in fast. Left forearm strike to my ribs that I blocked. Right palm to my elbow, pushing the guard open. Her foot hooked behind my ankle and she pulled and I shifted my weight forward to compensate and her other hand was already on my hip and she was turning into me, using my forward momentum against the pull.

I planted. Enhanced strength through my legs, bracing against the throw. She felt the resistance and adjusted. Her palm slid up my arm to my shoulder and she pulled down while stepping through and her hip hit mine at the pivot point.

I didn't go down. But the attempt was clean. If I'd been anyone without superhuman durability she'd have flipped me. Her frustration lasted a quarter-second before she was already resetting, stepping back, hands up. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Gunhead had trained that out of her.

"Close," I said.

"I wasn't done."

Second combination. She came from the outside this time, circling left where my guard was weaker. A forearm strike I caught on my wrist. She locked the grip, both hands on my forearm, and twisted. Joint lock. My wrist folded at an angle that would've hurt anyone else. I flexed through it and broke the grip and she was already moving, flowing out of the lock into a duck under my counter-grab and her elbow caught me in the floating rib.

That one I felt. The rib was still tender from Stain's kick. She didn't know that. She just knew she'd found the opening and exploited it.

"Good," I said.

"Stop commentating."

"Stop hitting me in the ribs."

"Stop leaving them open."

Third combination. She faked the forearm strike and went low, shooting for my legs, and I sprawled back to avoid the takedown and her hand caught the back of my knee and she almost had me. Almost. I hooked her arm and pulled her up and she came willingly because the pull was what she wanted, using it to launch into a cross-body clinch that got her forearm against my throat. I peeled it off. She dropped, swept at my ankle, and I jumped it. She was up before I landed, hands ready, grin still there.

She came again. Faster. The combinations were crisp and she was chaining them, one flowing into the next, forearm strikes into joint locks into throw attempts into repositioning. Gunhead Martial Arts was a close-range system built for heroes whose Quirks didn't do the fighting for them.

I blocked. Dodged. Caught a wrist lock and reversed it and she went to one knee and I held her there for a second before she twisted free and the look on her face when she came back up was pure competition. Her headband had slipped. She pushed it back with her wrist without losing her stance.

"Second round," she said. Her breathing was harder now, chest rising under the compression shirt, sweat at her hairline. "Quirks."

"You sure?"

"I didn't learn this stuff to use it without my Quirk." She pressed her fingertips together once, the release gesture, clearing any residual charge. Then she spread her hands and her fingertip pads caught the gym light, the round smooth surfaces that could cancel gravity with a touch. "Ready?"

We reset. Center of the mat.

She came in the same way. Left forearm to ribs. I blocked. Her right hand came up and her palm hit my shoulder, all five fingertip pads pressed flat against my shirt, and gravity left.

My feet came off the mat. My body tipped backward and the ceiling swung into view and I was floating, weightless, nothing holding me to the floor.

She grabbed my sleeve. Pulled. My weightless body swung toward her with zero resistance and she stepped through and her hip was at my center of mass and she threw me. The ceiling and floor traded places. The fluorescent lights streaked across my vision.

The mat hit my back. Or I hit the mat. Without weight the impact was strange, a slap of surface against surface with no real force behind it. I bounced an inch off the surface. Then gravity came rushing back as her Quirk faded and I dropped the last centimeter and the mat compressed under me properly and I was heavy again and she was on top of me before I'd finished landing.

Knee on my chest. Left hand on my right wrist, pinning it to the mat above my head. Her other hand flat on the mat next to my ear. Her face above mine. Breathing hard. Sweat on her forehead. Brown hair falling out of the headband on one side and hanging between us. A drop of sweat ran from her temple to her jaw and fell and hit my collarbone.

Her thighs were clamped on either side of my ribcage. Her cheeks were red.

One second.

Three.

Five.

Her eyes on mine. Brown, wide, pupils blown from the adrenaline, the darker ring around her iris visible from this close. Her breathing was fast through her mouth and her grip on my wrist was still tight.

Seven seconds.

"You're supposed to tap out," she said.

"I know."

Her knee on my chest. Her hand on my wrist. Sweat on her forehead and brown hair falling between us and the mat was cool under my back and her body was warm on top of mine.

She leaned down. An inch. Her hair brushed my jaw.

I reached up with my free hand and touched her jaw. Her skin was hot and damp from the spar. She pressed into my palm. Her eyes closed for half a second and then opened and she was looking at me from six inches away and her lips parted.

She closed the distance.

Her mouth was harder against mine than last time. She tasted like salt and the protein bar she'd eaten before the spar and she was still pinning my wrist and her other hand moved from the mat to my jaw and she held my face and kissed me and her pulse was there in her fingertips where they pressed against my neck.

She pulled back. Breathing ragged. Her face was red from her cheeks to her ears to the collar of the compression shirt. Her hand was still on my jaw and her thumb was against my cheekbone and her fingers were in my hair behind my ear.

"I learned more than joint locks at Gunhead's."

"Show me."

Her mouth pulled into a grin. Wider than her usual. Sharper. It suited her.

She kissed me again. Harder. My free hand went to her waist and her hip flexed under my palm and her mouth opened against mine and her tongue was warm and she made a sound against my lips that wasn't quite a moan and wasn't quite a word.

My hand slid up her waist. Her ribs. The edge of the compression shirt where the fabric was damp with sweat. She pulled back.

"Hands."

"What?"

She grabbed my free wrist. Pushed it up above my head. Pinned both wrists to the mat with one hand, her fingers spread across my forearms, and the grip was strong from a week of Gunhead's forearm training and her other hand was on my chest.

"I'm showing you." Her face was above mine and her breathing was hard and her knees were tight against my sides. "Not the other way around."

I let her.

She kissed me and her hands held my wrists against the mat and her thighs pressed against my ribs. She bit my lower lip. Pulled. Let go. Kissed my jaw. My neck. Below my ear, where the tendon was tight from holding my head up, and I let my head drop back against the mat. Her mouth was hot and the gym was empty and the air conditioning hummed overhead and I kept my hands above my head because she'd put them there and her hips shifted against my chest and her breathing was fast and uneven against my throat. Her compression shirt was damp against my T-shirt and the heat from her body was soaking through both layers of fabric.

She pulled back. Looked down at me. Her hair was wrecked and her face was flushed and her eyes were wide and bright and her mouth was swollen and she was sitting on my chest with my wrists pinned above my head.

The gym lights buzzed overhead. The mats were cool under my back. The heavy bag she'd been working when I walked in was still swinging slightly from the chain, barely moving. Outside, it was dark. The campus was empty. We were the only people in the building.

She was still holding my wrists.