aa_valkyrie | Shop Talk (Steve) (Reply)

=NYC= Gym - Ground Floor - Avengers Mansion
The ground-floor gym is near Olympian in its thoroughness. From weights to balance beams to punching bags, the equipment runs the gamut of strength and agility training. It's also populated by discreet cameras that can be used to record sessions for any further review a subject might desire.

The gym is a common place to catch sight of the elusive Captainbird. So he's not actually very elusive. Actually, he's incredibly common around Avengers mansion. So the entire start of this pose is pretty irrelevant. Here is what /is/ relevant: Steve is busying himself with the punching bag, which offers the most enjoyable view of his backside out of all of the possible workout choices he could pick. You're welcome, ladies. This is the most ridiculous set pose ever.

Alas. Were it a Janet-bird or otherwise coming to roost in his gym-nest, there might be some appreciation for that impeccably shaped tush. Instead, it is the cruel Valkyrie-hawk with her sword in hand that enters the gym. Steve's rump roast is just not her cut of bacon. A good thing for him, as once she bypasses him for an open span of floor, the crisp singing of a blade pulled from its sheath cuts through the air. Swoosh.

Oh, what, she only likes his rump roast in comic books? W/E VALKYRIE. Steve's attention is certainly caught by the -- unconventional weaponry in play. Well, unconventional by Earth standards, at least. He stills and looks over, blinking curiously as he watches her.

Shh. Pretty-in-pink-Valkryie is a beast to NEVER BE SPOKEN OF AGAIN. Besides, in art it can be aesthetically appreciated rather than sensually. EW BOY GERMS. She makes an unlikely looking master, with her Lightning-shortened blonde hair (still frizzled) and her thick boots. There is a level of poetry in brutal motions of the sword cutting through the air, whistling as she moves quickly through a series of strokes.

"That's one weapon that I never really learned," Steve comments with a quiet crook of a smile as he watches her. Despite the words, his gaze is most assuredly one of professional curiosity as he studies her form and poetry.

There is an absolute steadiness to her hands as Valkyrie cants her face to look to Steve, a slight smirk on her lips. She needs not to look to her weapon, too many years for it to be less than an extension of her arm. "We learn from when we are young. You pick up your weapon and then you never lay it down." But for death, of course. Blood is red, strangulation is blue... It's that sort of poetry. "What weapons do you know?"

"Guns, mostly," Steve says in a tone of shrugging admittance. "Or -- the shield, mostly, I guess. That's mainly what I use."

"Guns are acceptable for range. They lack...commitment," Valkyrie opines, blade swinging above her head. "Your shield is used...how? I have not the pleasure to see you in battle, yet."

"Well, it's -- made of this special material, you see. Vibranium?" Steve's enthusiasm for his shield, it must be said, is pretty notable. "It absorbs any impacts, so it makes it really suited for ricocheting against things. And it can't stand up to -- well, I'm pretty sure anything. Thor brought down that hammer on his and got off worse than I did."

"Fascinating." The cyclical swing of her blade comes to a sudden stop. "May I see it?" Valkryie wonders with interest, easily shifting her weapon from one hand to the other. Steve's enthusiasm is matched.

"Sure." I didn't pose it earlier, but IT'S TTLY IN THE ROOM. Steve lopes over to the corner where he's set it aside and plucks it up with long familiarity. He's not delicate with it, but he handles it with a certain affection. He strides back over to offer it to her.

"Hold it? I'd like to test its powers," Valkryie requests, staring at the shield with a furrowed brow. She swings her sword a little. Test? Plz.

"Oh, sure." Steve hoists the shield on his arm and looks positively cheerful at the prospect of Valkyrie attempting to stab him with a sword.

Stabbing! Valkryie flashes Steve a quick grin, all sunshine at the idea of his possible impalement. Then, in the blink of an eye she darts forward -- motions quicker than that of an ordinary human -- and swings her blade down on his shield.

Steve ducks down slightly and plants his feet when she swings downward, but it's the shield across his arm that absorbs the impact. Well, absorbs and -- returns. With equal force.

Let's see. Mathematically, that's a lot of force. That's enough force to send -- the not dainty -- figure of Valkyrie flying backwards as his shield channels and reverses the force back at her. She goes flying backwards, wide-eyed and strangely grinning, twisting in the air in an unsuccessful attempt to nail her landing. It is still more of a crash. Crashing with intent?

Steve lowers the shield back down, brows sweeping upwards, as she flings back. "Are you okay?" he asks, striding forward to where she has -- crashed with intent.

"That is an excellent weapon. The push back was just more than I expected," Valkryie admits, climbing to her feet with a sunny grin.

"I don't really know the exact scientific measure of it; it seems like equal force, but--" Steve shrugs a little helplessly. HE'S NOT AN ENGINEER. (Tony would know.) "Howard -- Tony's father -- said it was all the vibranium they had."

"A fortuitous expense then." Rising to her feet, Valkyrie sheathes her sword and lifts her shoulders in a shrug. "It is finely honed and certainly not something that one's enemies would expect. In the nature of which, how came the meeting with on the subject of the Asgardian witch? I apologize for my lacking presence. I had other business to attend."

"Oh," Steve says, his voice turning somewhat wry. "That." He scrubs at the back of his hair for a moment before sighing. "We decided it's best to get rid of that bracelet she uses. Tony says it's how she's performing a lot of her magic. Then it'll be easier to bring her in."

"Dead or alive?" Valkyrie questions dryly, pale brows lifted over the sharp line of nose.

"Alive," Steve says, frowning at the question. "We're not executioners."

"The only enemy who cannot cause you any more harm is one who is dead, Captain. Although, from what little I know of your mortal laws the witch is yet to break them," Valkyrie notes, mouth twisting at the corners. Other than immigration laws. "Where is she to go?"

"From what Thor told me of her time in Asgard, I sure hope what she did doesn't warrant an execution there, either," Steve says, still frowning. "That's not how we do battle here." He draws in his breath and then exhales slowly. "Thor wants to take her back to Asgard. He says he'll agree to keeping her here if we can keep her contained. Tony wants to just let her loose anywhere but Earth."

"She can slip her fingers into one's mind and will do it for fun and pleasure. In my home, it would warrant death to use such gifts purposely. That woman is a danger because she plays the dance of a child with the powers and charms of an adult," Valkyrie says with scorn. She adjusts the lay of her weapon, sliding it into its place across her back. "I know for certain that Romanof angers for what the witch has done. And Asgard...seems to have struggled in containing its criminals as of late. The Allfather would have cast them out, once."

"Cast them out where?" Steve asks, his expression hardening. "Earth? Send the worst of your criminals for us to handle?"

Valkryie pauses, letting out a bark of laughter. "I know not. I was once so cast. Thor...as well, if what I am to understand is true. No, Captain. Such was a punishment for disappointment in the days of old, to face justice and be stripped to be no more than mortal. If that were so common...I imagine I would have come across a few war criminals by now and their blood would be on my blade," she promises.

"Because we're not a penal colony," Steve says, quite firm on this point. "We're an entire world. We appreciate the help you and Thor and your friends have given us, but we're not here to be ruled by /anybody/, even Thor's father."

Valkyrie waves off his firmness with a brush of her hand, mouth curling in a half-smile. "I have no authority over anybody, Captain. Should that be a concern, it ought to be one directed to your Asgardian Prince and perhaps it ought be," she says. "Your world has long since developed into a people all its own by my eyes and I am content to see that it remains so. I'm just an old solider."

Steve relaxes a touch, and his smile is perhaps a shade apologetic. "Of course," he says. "I guess we're in something of the same position, huh?" OLD SOLDIERS.

"You wear your age better than I, Captain. The magazines of your women hint that I should ask after your daily skin regimen," Valkyrie comments, humor wry. OLD SOLDIERS. "I would bet I could tell you some stories though."

"Uh." A hint of baffled color blossoms across Steve's cheekbones. "Skin -- regimen?"

There is a certain confused candor that draws over Valkyrie's features. "I do know," she says with honest bemusement. "I have only read the covers."

"Right." Steve scrubs lightly at the back of his head again, the dictionary image of abashed.

Grinning broadly, Valkyrie claps him on the shoulder. "Best we just do not ask," she decides, before nodding towards the door. "I must eat. Join me?" She offers.

"Oh, sure." This is a much easier line of questioning! "I'll just hop in the shower and meet you," Steve offers.

"Good." Much easier! "I am sure there is another food we can find to inflict on you," Valkyrie suggests with a slighter grin. "I will meet you by the entry."