She narrowed her eyes and clenched her fist. “Do not challenge me.”
“Oh yeah, Sweetie?" Tom Blarne drunkenly slurred. Beer in one hand, the other gripping the counter to keep himself from falling down, he was no match for her at this time. Or any time, really. I mean, we were talking about Natasha Romanoff, here. Who did Tom think he was kidding? His 'friends' egged him on, but they were no real friends if they were putting him up against Nat. She had beat the shit out of James Simmons just last week for doing literally the same thing at a bar just down the street from this one.
“I’m fucking telling you,” She continued. It looked like she had no intention of backing down. “Take one more step. I fucking dare you.”
“Whoooah, a little much profanity for a lady like you. Amiright, guys?” Tommy looked behind him to see his friends had backed up a little, rightly intimidated by the armed, angry woman in front of them. “Ay, what’ve ye got to fear? She’s just a little pissed.” He said, then muttered “Must be on her period.” That’s when she threw the first punch.
And pretty much the only one needed, Tom fell right then and there. It may have been helped by the extreme state of intoxication he was in at the incident, but most everyone gave Natasha the credit. Although most of the friends dragged Tom away, one stepped forward.
“Bitch.” He said.
“Excuse me, what was that?” Natasha said, giving him a chance to back down.
“You heard me. Bitch.” He said, approaching her. Most of the bar-goers had now recognized him as the infamous Derek Alcorn, known for being the popular fuckboy in high school. He tried to do the same thing now, half a decade later, and when he was turned down got abusive.
“Okay, Derek. You sure you wanna do this?” She said, getting into fighting position.
“Yeah, I’m fucking sure.” Derek said, but his darting eyes and nervous posture gave away his true feelings. Nevertheless, he stood his ground. You’d have to give Alcorn that, he kept at his ambitions no matter what it came to. That wasn’t always a good thing, though.
“Ok. I’ll give you the advantage. Throw the first punch.” She said, going back to casually standing. When he hesitated, she added “Fine. I’ll give you 10 seconds to rethink your decision. 1, 2, 3, 4-” She was cut off as he struck her in the face, drawing blood on the side of her cheek. She felt it, then got back into her former stance.
“Knew you had it in you, Derek.” She said, smirking and taunting him to keep going. He obliged, fists up and ready to block any punches. He looked more confident in his ability to not fall flat on his face like his drunk friend. Someone in the audience yelled “Last chance to run, Alcorn!” then was shushed by another person in the crowd around the fight.
“Just like highschool” Someone else whispered, referring to the fights with huge circles around them, usually one of the fighters Derek or Tom.
And right when that was said, Derek found himself falling. It wasn’t one of those weird dreams, falling into oblivion kinds. And then he hit the ground. Hard. Bar tiling wasn’t always the best place to start a fist fight, especially with Natasha. Of course, she was still up, having kicked his legs out from under him. She seemed to have lost her humorous attitude from earlier and was in that mode. The kind she gets when she’s there to win, and there’s nothing that’s going to stop her.
And that’s when Derek knew he fucked up.