a short miss congeniality au
“I was going to do waterglass music tonight. I know that’s on your programs. But some of the girls got thirsty backstage, so I’m going to have to improvise.”
Her throat is dry and the stage lights are blinding, and her mind is racing. She’d known she was right, she’d known it in her gut the way you just know things sometimes.
And Gendry had come back and he’d basically told her she was right, without even saying that he’d been wrong not to stand up for her in front of the captain. This whole plan would have gone belly up from the getgo if it weren’t for me, she thinks fiercely, remembering that conference room and a group of dudes who had no idea how to remotely prepare for this mission. And none of them had their goddamn legs waxed for it either, and now it’s going to be one of her friends who might die. She takes a deep breath.
She doesn’t have any talents–just sarcasm and a gun.
Yeah, that and a right hook.
He was going to kill her, later, but she didn’t care. I dated him because he told me he had an incurable disease. Little did I know it was stupidity.
“So I figured–in the spirit of women’s rights and all that, now might be a good opportunity to teach some of you something every lady should know: self defense.” A murmur ripples through the crowd. “But first, I’m gonna need my associate to come out here. His name’s Gendry Smith. Give him a round of applause, come on out Gendry!”
There are the dubious applause of people not quite sure what’s going on, and she sees a spot light train behind her and, on the monitors in front of us, Gendry’s tawny face about three times the size of her. He’s smiling, but his eyes are halfway to stern and she knows he knows what she’s about to do to him.
“Now, I’m going to teach you all how to do the maximum damage with the least amount of force,” she tells the audience, and Gendry’s smile twitches slightly. Well, what had he been expecting? It’s not like they hadn’t wrestled each other to the ground before, and after all this bullshit he definitely owes her–big time.
“Now, let’s say your attacker is coming at you from the front,” she begins, and waves Gendry towards her. He moves quickly, and she jams her hand up into his face and there’s a definite crunching sound and a strangled “aughg” that are just loud enough for her microphone to pick up and the audience to make an “ooh,” sound while Gendry, stunned, stumbles back. “Take the heel of your hand and thrust it upward. This will cause your assailant’s nose to break and his eyes to tear and you can run away,” she beams out at the audience. They applaud, and she hears a few whistles and whoops.
Gendry’s looking at her now, his hand on his nose, and he’s giving her quite the look. You shouldn’t make fun of people who are bigger than you.
Yeah, well then I wouldn’t be able to make fun of anyone.
He’d practically sat on her chest while they’d been in the gym, convincing her to be here. This was the least he could do.
He’ll be fine. He’ll walk it off.
She turns back to the audience. “Now, let’s say your attacker is coming at you from behind,” she tells them. She waits. From the monitors in front of her, there’s no movement. Gendry is staying put. She turns. “Come on, attack me,” she stage whispers. The audience laughs.
Is this you not arguing? Because you suck at it, he’d said after the sting with the Russians. Yeah, she did suck at it. But he wasn’t playing along and she needed him to right now, god damn it, he’d been the one to tell her she needed to make it into the top five and this was how she was going to do it.
“Oh,” she tells the audience, and she puts on a baby voice. “Wooks Wike Gendwy’s a wittwe scawed. I think he needs some encouwagement.” The applause fill the room again–actual encouragement, unlike anything she’d gotten from him when she’d been about to be on stage. She’d heard him, heard all of them when Jaqen had jammed those silicone boob pads down the front of her bathing suit.
He’s stepping towards her again, and she feels his arms–strong, familiar–around her. She wastes no time in bending her legs and hurling him over her shoulder so that he lands flat on his back on the ground with a tremendous crash.
He lies there for a moment, stunned, and it’s not like when she throws him in the gym, for a moment he doesn’t move and she’s worried she broke him. But she hasn’t. He twitches, then rolls over and gets to his knees, standing again and rubbing his back.
“Your legs are your allies,” she tells the audience then. “Bend down and then it’s just physics getting him over your shoulder.” It was a little more than physics, but she wanted to make it look easy. The easier she made it look, the more likely it was that she’d win.
But she didn’t want people to get the wrong idea. She hated the idea of some girl stuck in a dark alley, trying to throw a guy over her shoulder and thinking it should just be physics.
“And, of course, if that doesn’t work, there’s always the four most sensitive areas of the body,” she tells. “And all you need to do,” she grins at Gendry, who still looks a little dizzy, “Is remember to Sing.”
He rounds behind her now, preparing himself and then springs forward.
“Solar-plexus.” He’d been the one to put her in a bikini on that goddamn monitor. Watch this, he’d said, and then wolf-whistled when there she’d stood, her photograph showing off legs and hips that were always hidden by her work clothes because that wasn’t who she is.
Operation Thong has commenced.
Why don’t you stun gun yourself?
I knew she’d like that one.
“Nose.” You look good wet, he’d told her after tugging her into the pool, after being ridiculously sweet and then turning into a jackass the way he always did.
“Groin.” He stumbles back, letting out a groan and for a moment her heart lurches, almost as it had the other night when they’d been by the pool and she’d been teasing him and they’d frozen and she thought he was going to kiss her. They’d been standing so close and the moon was shining overhead and there were stars and then he’d pulled out that fucking snickers bar and ate it right in her face. She could have killed him for the moment–and for the snickers bar, which Jaqen wasn’t letting her eat until after the competition was over.
He’ll walk it off, she reminds herself, patting him on the back, and nodding him off the stage as the audience cheers. Arya pulls on her best pageant smile, waves, then follows Gendry off.
“Need ice?” she asks him from the wings.
He glances at her and rolls his eyes. “You’d better have made the top five.”
“Oh, you know you thought it was hot,” she teases and pushes backstage. Gendry’s still behind her and when she turns to look back at him, his eyes flit up from where they’d been resting on her ass.
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