Chapter 13 : THE CAVALRY'S PRICE
May's fist connected with my jaw before I finished stepping through the cargo bay door.
The world tilted. I hit the mat hard, rolling with instinct I didn't consciously control. My ribs screamed—the bruises from the Reyes fight hadn't fully healed, and now they were announcing their presence with prejudice.
"You're dead."
I looked up. May stood exactly where she'd been standing, hadn't moved an inch except for the arm that had just rearranged my face.
"I thought training started at 5 AM," I managed, tasting copper.
"It did. You were late."
I checked my watch. 5:01.
"By a minute."
"Enemies don't wait." She settled into a fighting stance—loose, balanced, utterly terrifying. "Again."
I climbed to my feet, forcing my body to cooperate. The cargo bay was empty except for the two of us, the early morning quiet broken only by the hum of the Bus's systems. Someone had laid down training mats. I was going to become very familiar with them.
May attacked without warning.
My enhanced reflexes fired, jerking me backward from the punch. I dodged the second strike, blocked the third—
Her foot swept my legs out. I crashed to the mat again.
"Reflexes aren't skill," she said flatly. "They're a crutch. You react without thinking. That works against street criminals and soldiers who follow predictable patterns. It won't work against anyone with real training."
"I noticed." I sat up, wincing. "So how do I fix that?"
"You learn."
She attacked again.
---
The next hour was an education in pain.
May didn't pull her strikes, but she calibrated them—hard enough to teach, not hard enough to cause lasting damage. I learned this because she told me, in her characteristically sparse way, after the twelfth time she put me on the ground.
"If I wanted to hurt you, you'd be hurt."
"This doesn't count as hurt?"
"This is instruction."
She taught me to fall. Not the instinctive flailing my body defaulted to, but controlled descent—tucking my chin, rolling with momentum, distributing impact across maximum surface area. Every fall became practice. Every practice became another bruise.
My ribs stopped complaining around the forty-minute mark, probably because the rest of my body was generating enough pain to drown them out.
"Your reflexes compensate for poor positioning," May observed, circling me as I dragged myself upright again. "You've never needed to think about stance because your body fixes mistakes before they become problems."
"That sounds like an advantage."
"It's a weakness. What happens when you face someone faster than you?"
"Has that ever happened to you?"
She moved. One moment she was three feet away, the next her hand was around my throat and my back was against the cargo bay wall. I hadn't seen her cross the distance.
"Yes," she said. "It has."
She released me and stepped back. I rubbed my throat, heart hammering.
"Point taken."
"We'll work on fundamentals. Stance. Movement. Reading your opponent. Your reflexes are an asset, but they can't be your only tool."
"What about offense? I should probably learn to hit back at some point."
"You can't hit what you can't reach. And you can't reach anything if you're on your back." She settled into ready position again. "Now. Show me your stance."
I tried to remember everything she'd demonstrated—feet shoulder-width apart, weight balanced, hands protecting center mass.
She adjusted my form with quick, economical touches. Elbow in. Chin down. Weight forward.
"Better. Now maintain it while defending."
She attacked. I lasted almost eight seconds before hitting the mat.
Progress.
---
By the time May called the session, I couldn't remember what it felt like to not be in pain.
I lay on the mat, staring at the cargo bay ceiling, seriously considering whether I could just live here permanently. Moving seemed like a lot to ask.
"You don't quit." May's voice came from somewhere above me. "It's annoying."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"You shouldn't." A water bottle appeared in my field of vision. I took it with trembling hands and managed to get most of the water into my mouth. "Same time tomorrow."
"Can't wait."
She walked away without another word. The cargo bay door closed behind her.
I lay there for another five minutes, cataloguing injuries. The ribs were definitely unhappy—the healing progress I'd made over the past two days had been reset by the repeated impacts. New bruises covered my arms, legs, and torso in a patchwork of developing purple. My jaw ached where she'd hit me at the start. My throat was tender from the demonstration of her speed.
And somewhere underneath all of that, a small spark of satisfaction.
I'd asked for this. I'd pushed for it. And May—the Cavalry herself, one of the deadliest agents in SHIELD history—had agreed to teach me.
The pain was worth it.
Probably.
I tried to stretch. My body responded with a symphony of complaints that made me abandon the effort and return to lying flat.
"Oh my." Simmons's voice echoed through the cargo bay. "You look absolutely dreadful."
I turned my head—the only movement that didn't hurt—and found her standing in the doorway with a medical kit and an expression of horrified sympathy.
"May happened," I said.
"I gathered. She mentioned you might need some attention." Simmons hurried over and knelt beside me, already pulling supplies from her kit. "Can you tell me where it hurts?"
"Everywhere. Specifically everywhere."
"Very helpful." She began probing my ribs with gentle fingers. "I'm going to need slightly more detail."
"Ribs are the worst. Then probably my left shoulder. Then... general existence."
She hmm'd professionally and continued her examination. The prodding hurt, but her hands were careful, clinical.
"Nothing broken, I think, but you've significantly aggravated your previous injuries. You should be resting, not engaging in intensive combat training." She produced a bottle of pills and pressed two into my palm. "Muscle relaxants. Take these with food. And try to avoid being thrown into solid objects for at least forty-eight hours."
"I'll add that to my schedule."
"This isn't funny, Jake." Her eyes met mine, genuinely concerned. "You can't keep pushing your body like this. Even with enhanced healing, there are limits."
"I know." I swallowed the pills dry—the water bottle was empty and I didn't have the energy to find more. "But May doesn't teach just anyone. If I have to sacrifice some comfort to learn from the best, that's a trade I'll make every time."
Simmons sighed but didn't argue. "At least let me do a proper examination later. Full body scan, bloodwork, the works. I want to understand how your healing actually functions."
"Deal." I attempted to sit up. Failed. Attempted again. Made it to upright with significant assistance from Simmons. "After breakfast. Which I'm going to need help getting to."
"Lean on me."
She helped me to my feet, her small frame surprisingly solid under my weight. We made our way toward the galley at a pace that could charitably be called glacial.
"How did Fitz's sandwich rankings turn out?" I asked, partly because I was curious and partly because talking distracted me from the pain.
"He's added seventeen subcategories since your last discussion. There's now a separate section for sandwiches that contain both meat and cheese versus sandwiches that contain one or the other." She shook her head. "You've created a monster."
"I prefer to think of it as intellectual stimulation."
"Same thing, with Fitz."
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them . No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1