Black Widow | Cobra Kai

8. Strike First

Black Widow Chapter Eight: Strike First

Before leaving the house, Sloane applied a thick layer of vaseline to the stitched wound in her side and applied a gauze pad. Petroleum jelly was supposed to keep moisture trapped. It would help to heal it faster and reduce scarring.

She was feeling pretty okay a couple of days after the incident. There was still some pain when she laughed or made a wrong movement, but she was mostly upset about not being able to compete in the All Valley. But there was nothing she could do about it. Sensei wouldn't let her compete, even if she wanted to.

She'd spent about two days resting before she tried to get back to the dojo. Sensei put her to work as his training assistant. She got to yell at everyone for once. Johnny claimed she needed to practice her yelling voice because her voice was too soft or something like that. In all honesty, she was starting to suspect he'd gone a little soft on her, trying to make sure she felt she was still part of the team.

Sloane was meeting up with some from the dojo and Demetri after a distressed call from Miguel. Apparently, he'd tried to go to Sam's house only to see her and her family having dinner with some other guy. Naturally, he was pretty upset.

"Come on, eat something. It'll make you feel better," Demetri encouraged. Behind them, Eli was fighting with Bert. After Sloane had to drop out of the race, Eli had taken it upon himself to try to win the tournament for her. That meant also taking it as seriously as she did.

"Yeah. It's called comfort food for a reason," Sloane agreed, nudging Miguel.

"I told you I'm not hungry, man," Miguel replied with a sigh.

"I still think you're overreacting," Demetri said.

Miguel rolled his eyes. "I'm not overreacting, dude. I know what I saw," he insisted.

"Alright, so you saw her eating dinner with some chode," Eli kicked Bert hard across the face, sending him to the ground, "it's probably just her brother or something," he said as he went to lean on the bench they were sitting on.

Miguel shook his head. "No, dude- Brother's don't look at their sisters like that."

Demetri shrugged. "Depends on what part of the country you're in," he argued. Sloane playfully hit his arm as she tried to hide a grin.

Miguel sighed and looked down. "I just don't want what happened to Sensei to happen to me."

"Alright, so you go over to this kid and beat his ass so he doesn't have the chance," Eli suggested.

Demetri shook his head and turned away. "Don't listen to Eli."

"It's Hawk."

"Yeah, whatever," Demetri replied. "The fact is, Sam's given you no reason not to trust her."

Sloane nodded. "He's got a point. Why don't you just call her and ask her to meet up so you can talk. Then try to subtly bring it up. If she's honest about it, you can move on. If not, she doesn't deserve you," she told him.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Miguel responded, nodding.

"Oh! That little bitch!" Aisha suddenly spoke up after having been pretty much zoned out for the entire conversation. She was too occupied with her phone.

Sloane tried to catch a glimpse of her phone to see what the fuss was about. "What? What's up?"

"You know that video I posted of me breaking that board? Look what Yasmine commented." Aisha tilted her phone so Sloane could see. Yasmine had made yet another comment about her weight.

"You gotta do something," Sloane said. She was half ready to start a Twitter war, but Eli had other plans.

"Alright, how about we kidnap her and have my boy Rico tattoo 'bitch' on her face?" he suggested.

Demetri looked over his shoulder. "Calm down, 'Hawk'," he said in a way that you could basically hear the air quotes.

Eli gritted his teeth. "Alright, I hear how you're saying it, and I don't like it."

" Whatever. Sloane still gets to call you Eli," Demetri pointed out.

"And you're not nearly as pretty," Eli countered.

"Wait, wait, wait. I've got a better idea. Look," Aisha said and showed them Yasmine's story where she posted she was having a birthday party at the canyon.

Miguel frowned, clearly not following her idea. "Yasmine's having a birthday party at the canyon later?"

Aisha grinned. "Not if we strike first."

"Hell yeah!" Eli said. "Guess you're getting a birthday party after all," he told Sloane while he walked around the bench. He extended a hand to pull her up.

"It's been a month," Sloane reminded him. "And we just did what we always did. Stayed in and watched horror movies. We opened presents and everything. You gave me a guitar," she added, questioning if he'd lost his memory or something from getting hit on the head during training.

"A belated birthday party then," Eli replied with a shrug as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.