Ready to Suffer, Ready to Hope *Matt Murdock* (book three of Damned-3b) x Arrow

7) The vigilante bro code

Vera's jaw slightly dropped. "Good stuff."

"Good stuff," Oliver agreed, nodding. "Want some?"

Vera huffed out a laugh – which ouch, such a bad idea. Ribs. And her head. "It's not that bad. I'll settle for aspirin. Or two. Or three. I'll look into it."

Oliver handed her the right box with a smile and Vera downed two pills after some thorough reading. Two were a little much for a girl of her built, but she didn't think her liver of kidneys would fail. She was pretty confident one pill wouldn't do this time.

Since Oliver returned to his work, she ate her improvised brunch, returning to her phone. No one had answered her. Damn.

"You mind if I train a little?"

Vera looked up from the screen. "Huh? No." Actually... "You mind me watching?"

"No, I guess."

"I would ask you to teach me something, but..."

"But?" he question. "I wouldn't mind."

"Really? Well, the thing is, the drugs are barely settling in, I have no idea how you guys are moving around when you're hurt."

"Right. Maybe you should have taken something stronger."

"No. Maybe. I don't know. It's just a headache and... every-ache," Vera summed it up truthfully, earning a grimace from Oliver. "Make the training look cool enough and I'm sure I'll forget about my pain."

The archer laughed and didn't try to convince her further. "Okay."

He changed into workout clothes, not really having any shame in front of her – then again, she had seen him without pants already, so they were somehow past that. Still. The situation was different now.

He did some jogging and jumping to warm himself up before heading to the strange construction. Vera had checked it out before, having only a vague idea of how was it supposed to work. It was a horizontal bar, sure, but it was moveable up or down – and there were too many dents to just set it somewhere and leave it there. Which meant-

Oliver made the first— chin-up-jump? Vera was speechless. Because... wow. And the man just continued making his way up as if it took no effort.

"Okay, that's really cool. Jesus," Vera breathed, awed. And slightly dizzy. She didn't know if it was the drugs of what was happening in front of her. Probably a little bit of both.

Oliver jumped down with the bar, landing rather gracefully. "Felicity likes this one."

"Understandable."

"You want to try? It's basically just a chin-up with-"

"This? Nooo way," Vera protested immediately. "It looks like you need to use arms-" She pointed out her biceps and triceps that remained rather weak even with all fit-box training; in Czechia, her kind of arms was called toothpicks, "and abdominal and intercostal muscles a lot, so..."

"Got it. Your choice."

He repeated the exercises three times before moving to something else. And the something else meant taking two billy clubs – longer than Vera was used to, so that was something at least – making several sequences of hits, aimed at different bars hanging from the ceiling. Vera just managed to stare. Again.

Also, her ears hurt a little, but she was rather fascinated. And it made her a little sad. Still, she couldn't tear her eyes away.

"Holy— how are you so fast?" she asked when he made a pause and the metallic sounds faded.