𝐶𝐿𝑂𝐴𝐾 𝐴𝑁𝐷 𝐷𝐴𝐺𝐺𝐸𝑅 | 𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐆𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐒 [DISCONTINUED]

𝟐 | 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

"𝐴𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑘 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑘."
—𝑆𝑢𝑛 𝑇𝑧𝑢, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐴𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑊𝑎𝑟

𝒟.

𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐆𝐎 𝐓𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐈𝐒 knife through the air as he followed Natalia into one of the training rooms, a small grin on his face. 

Sure, he hated having to fight her, but then again, he got to spend more time with her—alone, at that. That was never something he could complain about. 

After Diego shut the door behind him, he turned to see that Natalia was already in the middle of the room, in the process of tying her hair up. He felt his heart rate spike for a moment as he watched her tug a few front strands loose, and prayed that she didn't see his nervousness grow.

With a sigh, Diego headed toward the middle of the room, still playing with the knife in his hand.

"Ready?" Natalia questioned as she let her hands fall to her sides, her eyebrows then raising as a small grin graced her face.

"To win?" Diego questioned innocently as he shrugged. "Always."

She rolled her eyes. "Shut up."

"We usin' powers this time or what?" asked Diego as he caught his knife and kept his clutch tight on its handle.

"We've done powers the past couple of times, so" —she gave a small shrug— "with no powers this time, I guess."

"Okay," he agreed, then shoving the knife into his leg holster and closing the top.

"Okay." Natalia nodded, her eyes narrowing as her knees bent slightly. "You count down."

"Three—two—one—go!" Diego said quickly before lunging forward and meaning to throw a punch, though she quickly side-stepped and pushed him back. 

"I didn't mean to count that fast, you idiot!" she sighed, then side-stepping once again to avoid the kick that Diego threw her way.

"You should've" —he ducked to dodge a punch— "specified, then!"

She managed to kick him in the side, causing him to grunt, though he quickly recovered as he sent a couple of punches her way.

"I didn't think you were that stupid!" she rebutted as she avoided a kick.

Diego rolled his eyes in amusement, though his amusement soon disappeared as he felt a sharp jab to his stomach, and he groaned as he clutched at it. He then took notice of the fist that was flying towards him, and, with widened eyes, he jumped out of the way.

Before he could realize, however, in the time it had taken him to recover from the little jump, Natalia had snuck up behind him.

She kicked him in the back, causing him to fall to his knees with a grunt, though he managed to quickly roll away before she could do any more damage to him.

Diego scrambled to his feet as Natalia circled around to face him, and he tried his best to not get distracted by the grin on her face.

"Tired yet?" she teased, her eyes flickering between his face and legs as she waited for him to move.

He scoffed. "You wish."

He lunged towards her with an outstretched fist that managed to meet her cheek, and he worried that it had been too hard for a split second as she groaned and stumbled back.