Thank you. [For the agreeing and the teasing and the affection and the existing in general. He leans against her heavily even though sticking around her room is probably not what Kitty wants to do right now. She can always tell him to move.] I was afraid that I would need to fight you into accepting a compliment.
Probably the lingering fatigue making me weak to hearing nice things about me. [Fatigue aside, she keeps him supported and for what it's worth she's not that worried about her surroundings. She needs to retrain herself, but it can wait a little longer. And it's not like she remembers being confined to the room for two months in active memory.]
I should take advantage of that and say more nice things about you. [Or maybe not. He doesn't want to make her think that he's still in love with her (even if he is, maybe, at least a little); that could mess up this nice friendship thing that's going on.]
What would you like to fight about? I will start preparing my arguments tonight.
Okay, if you insist, but no poetry unless it rhymes. [It's so hard to romance the girl when she's hung up on someone else and hung up seems to be her main setting around Chekov. Not on purpose. So much not on purpose.]
Such discerning taste in compliments. [He is most definitely not trying to romance the girl! Or anyone! His success rate is much too low and also this specific girl was recently told that her friends died. So many reasons to not romance.]
Capybara? I know those. Large rodents, correct? They are nuisances to rural Russian farmers.
That I already knew. One with the best of taste in both friends and pizza. [He's pretty sure that her difficulty level and his timing are not the only problems. He played his first relationship on easy mode and lost that game too.]
That was the extent of my knowledge, and even half of that was fabricated. Can we fight about something else? The existence or nonexistence of free will and fate, maybe? The structure of the multiverse?
You're just saying that because you're one of my best friends. [And everyone is different and a few relationships that don't work out doesn't mean he's bad at it. Hey, most of hers ended in death or attempted death. Okay, not most, but half and somehow the Reid one was right there with them in terms of terrible endings.]
Didn't want to go for the inconsequential? I feel like you're trying to take a solid run at winning here. But sure. Anything for you.
Not just. I like all of your other friends I have met.
[At least some of them loved her before the death/attempted death/whatever happened with Reid! ...Wait, horrible trade off, never mind. Kitty can win that one.]
The inconsequential is never worth fighting about. [Anything, she says?] Instead of arguing, we could spar. Natasha and Fenris have both been trying to teach me and you are two months out of practice, so I may have a chance.
I think that your choice-making has improved in the time I have known you. [Sure would've been hard for it to get worse!
And he always assumes teasing.] You have been in a coma for a very long time. You have never been this close to my level. [Which is not to say that she's close, just... closer.]
[That gets a little smile from her. There were some dark times in Marina. She'd like to think she's grown. Healed. It wasn't so much a character trait she'd always had so much as dealing with a lot of things she never had time to deal with back home and reacting without her usual coping mechanisms.]
Maybe when I was twelve? [Okay, she's just the worst.] Nat's pretty good. How's Fenris? I've never seen him fight.
[It's good progress, and sometimes it's good to acknowledge that progress even if it came about because of a kidnapping prison universe.]
Okay, yes, you were closer when you were twelve. [Look, he was always better with phasers than hand-to-hand combat back at the academy, he knows where he stands.] Fenris is somewhat less terrifying than Natasha... mostly, probably, because he's under the impression that I'm delicate. Tasha knows that Russians are innately durable.
Want me to give him a call and tell him not to hold back with you? [She never would. She's prepared to bubble wrap him if it comes to that, but she respects trying to get better and to be fair she doesn't really know how good he is. There must be some training with Star Fleet, right?]
Not today, thank you. Maybe later when life has been boring for longer than three consecutive days. [Little known fact: Pavel did undergo standard Starfleet training and fights better than the average nerd. That's still pretty awful when almost everyone around him is extremely experienced, ridiculously well-trained, working with superpowers, or some combination of those three.]
I wrote a star-mapping program, that was a little exciting. I bought three more books for the library and I ran out of vodka from the rock planet. [Somehow it sounds even more boring than it actually is when he says it out loud.] ...It wasn't very interesting without you at all.
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Only with a considerable amount of effort and self-deception. It would be simpler to agree me.
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We can fight about something tomorrow though.
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What would you like to fight about? I will start preparing my arguments tonight.
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Mmm...capybara.
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Capybara? I know those. Large rodents, correct? They are nuisances to rural Russian farmers.
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Those are the ones, but they're kind of adorable for large rodents. Get your arguments ready. Not afraid to come after you hard.
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[He's pretty sure that her difficulty level and his timing are not the only problems. He played his first relationship on easy mode and lost that game too.]
That was the extent of my knowledge, and even half of that was fabricated. Can we fight about something else? The existence or nonexistence of free will and fate, maybe? The structure of the multiverse?
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Didn't want to go for the inconsequential? I feel like you're trying to take a solid run at winning here. But sure. Anything for you.
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[At least some of them loved her before the death/attempted death/whatever happened with Reid! ...Wait, horrible trade off, never mind. Kitty can win that one.]
The inconsequential is never worth fighting about. [Anything, she says?] Instead of arguing, we could spar. Natasha and Fenris have both been trying to teach me and you are two months out of practice, so I may have a chance.
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Spar? With me? Oh, sweetie. [She smiles. She means it as teasing rather than condescension, but he can decide how it feels.] We can give it a try.
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And he always assumes teasing.] You have been in a coma for a very long time. You have never been this close to my level. [Which is not to say that she's close, just... closer.]
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Maybe when I was twelve? [Okay, she's just the worst.] Nat's pretty good. How's Fenris? I've never seen him fight.
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Okay, yes, you were closer when you were twelve. [Look, he was always better with phasers than hand-to-hand combat back at the academy, he knows where he stands.] Fenris is somewhat less terrifying than Natasha... mostly, probably, because he's under the impression that I'm delicate. Tasha knows that Russians are innately durable.
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