The Preserve, Saturday Afternoon

[so_hawkward]

Clint wasn't sure if teaching someone how to throw knives counted as a date, but he figured as long as Kitty was here and she wanted to do it, it counted for them.

Well, there probably had to be some making out too, but there'd be time for that later.

"Here, this is probably a good spot," he said, setting his bag down. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

[For the girl in the post!]

Comments

[throughaphase]

"It definitely shows," Kitty said appreciatively. "You just keep getting cooler on me."

At some point the stage of finding everything he did to be great would probably fade, but for now it was hard not to go around with an air of My boyfriend's awesomer than yours...

[so_hawkward]

"I guess I can't complain about that," Clint said, beckoning her over with a wave of his hand. "Now it's your turn, come here. I'll show you what to do."

[throughaphase]

"Watch me not argue with the man with the knives," she teased, coming to stand next to him. "Okay."

[so_hawkward]

"Hey, you're totally safe with me," Clint insisted, offering her the knives before moving to stand behind her with his hands on her hips. It was just so he could get her standing the right position, honestly.

[throughaphase]

"I know," she assured him, totally fine with letting him move her as necessary. Any kind of distraction with that sort of thing could wait until she wasn't holding sharp objects. "Now what?"

She was betting he had more than just 'now throw, and try not to hit any woodland creatures.'

[so_hawkward]

Hopefully, the woodland creatures knew to stay away by now when Clint showed up. "The most important things are focusing, and keeping your movements steady. It's better to hit the same spot every time than to only hit the center once." Clint guided her to hold one of the knives, and tried to show her how to move her arm in a steady motion. "You don't need to put that much force behind it, just bring your arm down and let it go."

[throughaphase]

Kitty even repeated the motion, just to make sure it felt okay. Then, pretty sure she could manage that, she nodded, asking, "Can I try now?"

[so_hawkward]

"Yeah, go ahead," Clint said, nodding. "Let's see how well you do."

[throughaphase]

Trying to keep herself relaxed, because stiffening up usually threw steady movements right out the window, Kitty focused on the target and finally threw the knife.

It landed a little off target, not nearly as bad as she'd feared but she was definitely out of practice. "Oh good, it'd be embarrassing if I missed the tree," she said happily.

[so_hawkward]

"See? I told you not to worry," Clint said, glad that he hadn't had to eat his words. "Now try the rest of them."

[throughaphase]

Taking as much time as she needed, Kitty went through the other three knives. One was a slightly lucky shot that hit not too far from the center of the target, but the others landed in the vicinity of the first. Which would be fine if that was what she'd been aiming for.

"Thoughts?"

[so_hawkward]

"It's a good start." Not that he would have said anything else, really. "Three out of four close to each other is really good. But I'm gonna assume you were aiming for the center, right?" Maybe it was a silly question, but he still had to ask.

[throughaphase]

"Yeah," she admitted, making a face. "I think I just got used to doing the same thing I did the first time."

[so_hawkward]

"No, no, that's fine. The problem is, there's this annoying thing called gravity." Clint laughed and gave in to the urge to give Kitty a little squeeze before going over to to the target. He pulled the knife that had ended up away from the others out of the tree, and then stuck it back in as far from the center as the other knives were, in the opposite direction. "You can't really hit where you aim, gravity gets in the way, along with anything else that might be going on outside. So, you've got to figure out where to aim to compensate." He pulled the rest of the knives out, and offered them to her again. "Aim for the knife and see what happens."

[throughaphase]

"Right," Kitty nodded, taking a breath and aiming the first knife. She knew she could do better than this, so she was just going to have to try harder. She could do that.

This time was definitely better, with them ending up on or near the target, if not in the center of it. "We're getting somewhere..."

[so_hawkward]

"See? You're not bad at this at all." And for that, Kitty earned herself a well-deserved kiss. "I still think you're awesome. Even if you're not quite as awesome as me."

[throughaphase]

While she had him close, she was going to wrap her arms around him just because she could, and because no one was holding knives right this second. "You can be awesomer here. I'll just hack into something later on to feel superior," Kitty teased.

[so_hawkward]

"Like computer hacking? That's definitely something you're probably better at than I am. I have to keep writing my passwords down so I don't forget them," Clint said with a laugh.

[throughaphase]

"I am the goddess of computing," Kitty said modestly. "So I can be better at that and you can be way better with sharp things at a distance and having sexy arms."

[so_hawkward]

Clint couldn't help but flex his arms because hey, if it made Kitty happy... "That sounds like a very good arrangement to me."

[throughaphase]

"Thanks for showing me this," she said appreciatively, even if she was smiling at the arm flexing. "I mean, watch me work to not suck at this as much, but that's not a bad thing."

[so_hawkward]

"Hey, you're welcome. It's not often that I get to be an expert in something, and you're fun to teach." The whole getting to spend time with her thing hadn't lost any of it's delight, which probably helped too.

[throughaphase]

"What can I say, I like to learn." Or relearn, more accurately, but that wasn't going to stop her from giving him a kiss in thanks.