Playing Cat and Mouse

Mouse had imprinted on the giant of a man while they were on her homeworld. Since getting to this one, she'd followed him around almost constantly. This was no exception. When he made his way to the gym, she followed silently, watching in wide eyed wonder as he went at a punching bag. Mouse was content to watch him from against the wall.

All things considered, it wasn't because Dan didn't like her... he just didn't like being trailed. But he couldn't exactly stop her either - for one, she moved like smoke, he was pretty sure he'd have trouble hearing her coming even if he hadn't been in as many gunfights and explosions as the cast and scenery of an average Michael Bay movie. Running from her just wasn't an option - he'd never live it down. So he'd come to the conclusion that it couldn't do any harm. Though texting Half-Colonel Howards to get her to intercept Mouse so he could get a damn shower had been an Awkward Moment Highlight.

Eventually, to try and just shake off the eeriness of being followed by a silent tiny person, he'd started saving a seat for her in the Mess Hall. It didn't feel as profoundly disturbing to be followed all day if he ate breakfast with the person following him. He wished he'd thought of it sooner - could've saved a few days of wondering what to do with the time he usually spent in what his ex called "suspended animation" with the newspaper, just vegging out.

When he got to the gym, he contemplated some arm endurance exercise (i.e. the heavy bag) but went for his old buddy the speed bag instead, wrapping his hands and hammering away at it. He was good-enough that he'd hit with his knuckles - he had pretty good natural rhythm to keep himself from belting the bag too hard or too fast and he was a natural at hitting moving targets. Plus, it was a lot easier on the calcified cinderblocks at the ends of his arms that most people erroneously referred to as hands. When he'd decided he'd had enough for one rep of speedbag work (about ten minutes according to the gym's clock, he stepped back and offered his spot at the bag to Mouse.

"Ever driven one of these before?" he asked to catch her attention.

Mouse tilted her head at him, studying him carefully. "Driven one? It is not a vehicle." She was trying to adjust to the new words and idioms on this new planet, but there were some (a lot) phrases that just simply went over her head. Badly.

That one was apparently one of them.

Mouse stepped forward on silent feet, coming closer to the large giant man she'd taken to following - but not too close. She was still skittish and wary of people in general, even if she did get a good feeling from him on an instinctual level.

"That's a figure of speech. I'll take that as a no, that you haven't used one before," Dan stretched his hands and tried to think of how to explain the speed bag in terms she would understand, "This is a speed bag. It's for working on your arm endurance, rhythm, timing and hitting a target that represents a head way better than a heavy bag," his old boxing trainer would have killed him for misrepresenting the almighty speed bag to that extent.

"Let's get your hands wrapped up and get you started on the lower one," Dan nodded to the second speed bag, set up for the female and shorter-male staff on the base, then went digging for one of the many spare pairs of hand wraps he kept in his gym bag (there was always one idiot in a gym who'd pound on the heavy bag bare-handed and irreparably weaken their metacarpals), "Your hands are your tools in most lines of work, whether you're fighting, shooting, writing, typing or painting. You've gotta take care of them. Get the jacket off and we can get to work."

Mouse resisted the urge to skitter back and put as much distance between herself and the large man she'd been following. As it was, she couldn't quite stop herself from taking two steps back before her legs obeyed her and halted their backwards trajectory. "I'm not good at fighting. "

"Would I be right in assuming that means you're a little skittish about learning?" Dan tried to sound gentle and supportive but even on his best days he sounded like he was speaking through a traffic cone - he wasn't exactly not intimidating, "We can start slow. Three rounds on the bag. I'll demo on mine, you copy what I do on yours, okay?"

If she was going to insist on following him, she was damn well going to get some good out of it.