Breaking and Entering (Hobbs)

[David Cortes]

Getting up from the coffee table, his hands caked with blood and gun oil, he headed over to the bathroom just as Hobbs was heading towards the fridge to grab the beers. He couldn't help but smirk a bit at her grabbing a blanket from the bed to wrap herself in, as he turned on the sink water and began to scrub his hands all the way up to his elbows. He then continued to scrub, using almost excessive amounts of soap around his hands and arms until eventually they were only tinted reddish, and not drenched as they had been before. He then took off his shirt, and began to scrub his face, neck, and any other part blood had fallen on him.

"So why'd you set this place up?" Hobbs asked from main room as David was wiping his face and neck off on a towel, leaving smears of red all over it. He sighed as he walked out in his cargo pants and boots, his shirt inside-out and rolled up into a little ball as he walked into the bedroom. "Location." He replied, as he closed the door to the room and took off his pants and boots, continuing to speak through the door. "It's far enough from the rest of the city that cops don't regularly pass by, I can park a car here, and there's enough activity around here that if something major happens I can respond."

Slipping on a pair of jeans and some sandals, he walked out as he grabbed a red t-shirt with USMC written on the front. Pulling it over his head, he plopped a seat next to Hobbs and grabbed his beer. "May I?" He asked, as he used her prosthetic leg to open the bottle. Taking a swig, he smirked as he used the neck of the bottle to point at her leg.
"So... You never did tell me where ya got that. Am I allowed to know yet, or have we not had enough beers?"

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

Hobbs watched him scrub off his hands before returning to the lounge, nibbling on the edge of the rubber rim silencers on her dog tags as she watched him owlishly over the top of her knees.
"Sure," she said, moving aside the blanket so that he could pop the cap off on her knee panel. It was a strange thing to ask, but Hobbs didn’t mind it, and if it worked as a bottle opener than was a design bonus. Like the time she hoisted open a manhole with her cheetah blade. Can’t do either of those things with a normal leg, huh. Sometimes it was a good thing; made her feel like the Bionic Woman. Sometimes... not so fantastic.

He asked where he got her leg. She’d told him she’d made it herself that time they’d met in the hospital, but Hobbs knew he wasn’t asking that. He didn’t mean to ask where she got the leg from, but where she lost her other one to. Shame it was one of those topics Hobbs didn’t like talking about. In fact, anything before her arrival in New York was a topic she didn’t like talking about.

Only two people knew about her past before New York; Logan, who’d read it in her files, and Stark, who she’d told before he vanished. She didn’t really like telling people; there seemed to be an attachment to those who’d seen military service. They really lapped that stuff up in the Hunter Compound. It was seen as a good thing to have served in the armed forces, an example of competence. But for her, who’d seen war and hadn’t returned whole? There would be a whole different attachment to that.

"I really don’t want to talk about-" she broke off. Hobbs eyed the USMC on his shirt, remembered the eagle, globe and anchor tattoo on his shoulder. Cortes was ex-Marine Corps. If anyone understood, he would.
"Afghanistan, " she said suddenly, looking down at her Corona bottle. "I was in Helmand; British Army Intelligence Corps. We were on patrol and the jeep got taken out by an RPG. Three of my men died."
And there it was. She’d laid out one of her closest-kept secrets bare before him.

[David Cortes]

As Hobbs went into her explanation about what how she had gotten her prosthetic leg, a lot of things suddenly became clear for David. British military... That explained how she was such a damn good shot. He widened his eyes and slowly nodded his head. Clearly, it had taken a lot of trust on her part to admit all that to him. David understood that. Many of his friends, guys who have been to hell and back, don't like talking about it. Even he tried to only remember the good things, like going out drinking with the guys or travelling, because some things were just too damn painful.

David took a swig of his beer, looking down away from Hobbs for a second and staring at the coffee table. Biting his lower lip, his eyes then flicked back up to her. "I'm... Sorry to hear that... Losing your leg must have been tough enough..." His throat felt a bit dry for a second, it always got that way when trying to awkwardly stumble through clearly painful topics. He always preferred lighthearted conversation, not touchy-feely stuff. He decided it'd probably be best to at least attempt to lighten the mood, as they had just had a successful hunt, and captured what could be a major piece of intel. No need to feel down tonight.

"Intel though... Tell me, do they teach you how to hustle in the intelligence corps? Because you could have at least warned me before I made that bet..." He offered a small smirk, taking another swig of his beer. "My bank account starts crying every time I see my bar tab."

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

Hobbs took a swig of her beer and stared at the bottle as she chewed on the inside of her lip. This was always the awkward part, that part where there was some kind of sympathy or extended conversation ,or an expression of shock or pity which, by now she had learned to predict and couldn’t bear to look at his face on the chance that he was just like everyone else. She didn’t want the kind of apologetic pity Logan had given her; she was a capable hunter and that was what mattered, not how many limbs she had or shit that went down in the past.

I'm... Sorry to hear that... Losing your leg must have been tough enough...
Hobbs groaned and rested her head against her knees.
Oh, God, there it was. The ‘sorry’. Like he had anything to apologise for. He didn’t fire that RPG did he? Hobbs didn’t go around moping or otherwise indicating that she mourned the limb. She wasn’t sorry, neither should he be. If anything, she could now pack a serious kick with that leg, and depending on how she switched out her machinery she could go for a cheetah blade that conserved energy and actually made her faster. Seriously, she could engineer her own body. How cool was that? And how many others could claim to do such a thing? And the wheelchair days that came with having to compensate for maintenance every once in a while? Worth it.

Hobbs lifted her head a little, so that her dark eyes peered owlishly over the top of the duvet across her knees.
"Nope, that’s all me, baby," she said, her voice muffled by the blanket. Even with half her face hidden, it was obvious that she was grinning.
Actually, she learned that stuff in university. One a student’s budget, when presented with the risk of drinking for free or paying for someone else all night, it was sink or swim. And Hobbs had swum. Oh, how she swam...

[David Cortes]

"Nope, that’s all me, baby," she said, her voice muffled by the blanket. Even with half her face hidden, it was obvious that she was grinning. David looked at her with a mixed look of disbelief and amusement. So while she was trained in the military, she wasn't an actual sniper... And yet she kicked his ass... By pure skill and an intelligence that David already fully understood was far beyond his own. And she used it to her advantage by hustling him out of 6 month's worth of booze.... Oh no, time to get some payback.

Grinning mischievously, he looked at her dark brown eyes with his own dark blue ones, a bit lighter now that he had a rather fun plan to get back at her. Placing his beer down, he chuckled lightly as he stood up and walked behind her.

"Well... Since I already pay for all your beer at the bars...." He grinned as suddenly he grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her, all the way around her legs. It was rather easy seeing as how she was already in a little ball, and he picked her up easily enough and dropped her in the bunk room and shut the door behind him, putting his foot to block its opening as he reached over to the coffee table and grabbed his beer. He then sat down in front of it, making sure she couldn't get out.

"Since you already drink away my money, now you can't have any more of my beer." He laughed, taking a swig of his own beer. "Now sit quietly in there and think about why hustling is wrong, m'kay?" He mimicked his own father's voice, one of a father chastising a daughter or son, a giant grin on his face.

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

Hobbs lowered her knees and lifted her head to look at Cortes as he set his beer down and got up. What was he doing? Then, without warning, he lifted her effortlessly off the couch; Hobs was a waif of a being and Cortes was a pretty muscular ex-Marine. Go figure. She was stunned for a moment, wondering what the hell he was doing, and she didn’t try to struggle away until she realised that he was taking her towards the bedroom. Okay, this was going in some weird direction and Hobbs wasn’t entirely sure whether she was meant to like it or not.

He dropped her to the floor in his room then shut her in there, chastising her as he did so. Well she hadn’t quite expected that, if she was going to be honest. Hobbs put her beer on the floor.
“Hey!” she yelped, getting up and trying to open the door. It wouldn’t budge. “You can’t do this! This is a hostage situation, Cortes!” She tried the handle, and although it would turn the pin, the door still wasn’t opening. So he was blocking the door, not immobilising the handle. “They lock people up for this kind of shit, y’know!” she called through the door, “and now I know where you live!”

Okay. So that wasn't working. Time for the good old-fashioned body slam.
“This,” she grunted, throwing her shoulder against the steadfast door, “Is. Getting. Ridiculous.” She slammed her body weight against the wood on every word but it was no use. She weighed, what - a little over a hundred pounds? And Cortes was probably double that depending on his muscle mass. God dammit. She couldn’t get out of here by brute force alone. She either had to get him to unblock the door - unlikely - or she’d have to use her own ingenuity to do so. Now that was the easier option.

She slid down the door and sat on the floor on the inside. After picking up her beer and taking a swig, she added, “I bet you think you’re hilarious, don’t you?”

[David Cortes]

Oh this was just absolutely amazing. No, really, David could not help but laugh hysterically as Hobbs shouted and ranted at him from behind the closed door, slamming her body against a door that so long as he propped himself against was not going to come open through sheer force. It was a simple matter of physics. David was sure there was some mathematical formula or something or other that would explain why, but he knew the short, simple version. He was heavier. The end.

Laughing at her frustration, David shouted back. "As a matter of fact, I do. There's something oddly satisfying and hysterical about someone at least thirty pounds lighter than me tying to slam her way through a blocked door. That, or maybe it's the smug satisfaction that so long as your in there I can enjoy a beer without the constant crying of my bank account. Either way, good luck getting out."

He took another sip, and soon realized that his beer was empty. "Dammit..." David muttered as he put the bottle on the coffee table nearby. Noticing Hobbs half-consumed beer still sitting there, he stood up and put his foot on the crack of the door, wedging it into place in case she got any ideas, and reached over to pick it up. Stretching as far as he good, he could just feel his finger tips touching the glass, about to finally have it in his grasp...

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

"Hah! You think your money’s safe if I’m in here? Nothing’s safe, marine, nothing!"
Setting her bottle down, Hobbs cracked her knuckles. She had a plan. She ejected the magazine from her Glock and rummaged through her assortment of weapons for the KA-BAR she once stored inside her leg. Finding it, she emptied the bullets all over the floor and struggled for a few moments cracking open the casing. Finally, wedging the knife blade into the casing and bashing down on the knife like a chisel, the casing popped open and spewed gunpowder across the floor.

Excellent.

The thing was, Hobbs was remarkably good at MacGyvering bombs. Strangely good, actually. To the point where it wouldn’t be wrong to ask, “what the actual hell is wrong with you, woman?” Cortes should have known what was coming, really.

Hobbs opened up two more bullets, then collected the gunpowder into small piles. She grabbed the duvet from the bed and tore off excess material from the inside of the seams, trying to be as non-destructive as possible, which was ironic, really, considering what she was planning. Cutting the cloth into squares, she filled them with gunpowder and made them into tiny linen parcels which she tied shut.

She glanced up, hearing movement from the other side of the door. Was he trying to barricade her in? For a second dread lanced through her as she imagined Cortes grabbing a chair to wedge the door shut. She had to work quickly.

Next, using the remnants of gunpowder across the floor and a few pieces of cotton, Hobbs rolled cotton strands into a thread of decent thickness, ground down the rest of the gunpowder using the butt of her knife, slightly wet the cotton and rolled it through the powder so that the explosive stuck. Then she attached the cotton and gunpowder fuses to the parcels, these she poked into the small crack down one side of the door, positioning the tiny explosives so that they would blow the hinges apart once they went off.

With that done, Hobbs reached for the cheap plastic Bic lighter she kept with her, and lit the fuses.

Three.

Hobbs stood back.

Two.

She tossed aside the lighter and readied herself.

One.

BOOM.

And Hobbs ran towards the door at full pelt, aiming her mechanical leg at the door as she cannonballed herself at it.

[David Cortes]

"Almost... Got ya..." David muttered, just as he was about to reach the beer sitting on the coffee table. He was so very close. If he just reached a wee bit further....

Wait, what was that?

Hobbs was up to something, but what? It wasn't like she was going to try to slam the door again, she should have learned by that point simply slamming against it was useless. No, she was planning something... but what?

David didn't have long to figure it out, for after a few seconds there was a loud bang, followed by the door's hinges simply being blown apart. What followed next was almost out of a ninja movie. Flying through the air, Hobbs canonballed herself as the door fell to the ground beside them while David was still leaning towards the table. Wide eyed, he could do nothing to stop her, as almost instantly she landed on his back, causing him to grunt in pain as he landed square on his chest.

Groaning, his eyes closed, he turned his head and opened the eye closest to her, looking up at the lithe british ninja and sighing. "Ok... You made your point... Mind getting off me now?"

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

The makeshift bombs blew, the force of the explosions taking out the hinges a split second before Hobbs’ well-timed, mechanical leg slammed at the door and busted the whole thing clean out of the frame. There was a split second, then, in which gravity did not exist, and the small waif of a woman surfed down through the air on the back of Cortes’ bedroom door. Her arms spread wide to catch her balance, her legs folded behind the door as it fell, Hobbs had braced herself for the second it slammed against the floor. What she hadn’t anticipated, however, was landing on top of Cortes, who suddenly found himself taking a real close look at the floor.

The door had flown out from under her and skidded across the floor as Hobbs found a landing pad on Cortes’ back. She landed with her mechanical knee in his back and it took her a moment to realise that she was on top of him.

"Sorry, what’s that Cortes?" Hobbs said, cupping a hand to her ear as she crouched on top of him. "I couldn’t hear you down there. The floor tastes good? Well have some more on me! " Hobbs said, cackling gleefully as she jumped on again, pressing her weight down onto Cortes’ back.
"Wait, no, that would be on you, now, wouldn’t it?" She laughed again, not for her lame-ass joke but for the sweet bizarreness of the situation.

"Now then," Hobbs said, stepping down off him. Her footsteps of metal and flesh sounded different against the floor. "Where’s my money, bitch?"