Story: "Up the Water Spout" Part 10
Sep. 19th, 2014 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis story belongs to the series Love Is For Children which includes "Love Is for Children," "Hairpins," "Blended," "Am I Not," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys,""Saudades," "Querencia," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," "Birthday Girl," "No Winter Lasts Forever," "Hide and Seek," "Kernel Error," "Happy Hour," "Green Eggs and Hulk,""kintsukuroi," and "Little and Broken, but Still Good."
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Natasha Romanova, Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Betty Ross, Bucky Barnes.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Mention of human trafficking and nonconsensual drug use. Slightly offstage sexual violence. Dubcon/Noncon.
Summary: Sometimes the Black Widow needs to hunt, and sometimes she needs help settling her personality afterwards. Uncle Phil arranges an extra ageplay session.
Notes: Hurt/comfort. Family. Fluff and angst. BAMF!Black Widow. Black Widow is creepy. Spiders. Coping skills. Asking for help and getting it. Hope. Nonsexual ageplay. Caregiving. Competence. Girl stuff. Toys and games. Gentleness. Trust. #coulsonlives
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20.
"Up the Water Spout" Part 10
Betty went over to the weightlifting rack and boosted one of the 25-pound discs coated in rubber. "Here," she said. "This can be your potsy. It'll give you a little more challenge. Aim for Square 2."
"What do I do with the old one?" Natka asked.
"Balance it on your head while you hop, and don't drop it," Betty said with a smirk.
"... okay," Natka said, a little dubiously. She chucked the heavier potsy into Square 2, barely getting it inside the lines. Then she put the rock on her head and hopped through the squares. She made it to Square 9 before the rock tumbled off.
Betty laughed and waved Natka back to the starting line before venturing into her own second turn.
Phil was already imagining other variants to make this game more challenging for physically fit adults. Steve loved agility training. He could probably be enticed to try hopscotch while balancing an egg on a spoon.
They played a few more rounds. Then they switched to a version where everyone had to throw their potsy on a different square, and you couldn't step on any square that had one in it. The longer jumps complicated the game, especially for Natka who still had her rock balanced atop her head.
"Want to try a different pattern?" Phil asked then.
"I guess," Natka said.
"Can we play swamp hopscotch?" Betty asked.
"Sure," Phil said. "Go ahead and lay out the board."
Swamp hopscotch involved drawing a large rectangle, its border marked by fourteen squares. Betty sketched it out quickly and then left Natka to finish the details while she filled the center with cattails, lily pads, and an enormous alligator rendered in various colors of chalk. Natka just concentrated on making large, clear numbers.
"What are the rules?" Natka asked.
"No potsies this time. First you hop forward from Square 1 to Square 14. Then you hop backward to Square 1 again," Betty said. "You can't land on a line or anywhere inside the Swamp."
It was simple enough to hop forward. Nobody made it more than a few squares backward before landing on a line. It was too hard to aim and balance a the same time. They kept trying, though, and gradually they got better at it. Natka improved faster than the others, her enhanced dexterity giving her an edge.
Then Betty laid out another grid, similar to the first but with the numbers counting by twos. "I used to do stuff like this in grade school," she said. "I'd practice math with it, and later, foreign languages." She hopped along the squares, counting aloud in Spanish. "Some people write vocabulary words on the grid too."
Natka went through counting in Russian, then Japanese on the way back.
"Show off," Betty said, but she was smiling.
Taking up the chalk, Natka laid out a new design in orange. Inside the squares she used blue to write the elegant squiggles of Hindi. Phil wasn't fully fluent in that language, but he recognized "knife" and "milk." In the top box, to his surprise, Natka drew the symbol for "OM."
"Did you learn that last one from Bruce, or on your own?" Betty asked.
"Bruce," said Natka. Then she flipped neatly onto her hands and made her way through the grid.
"You win," Betty said. "I am not even going to try to duplicate that!"
* * *
Notes:
Handicapping in sports uses weight to even up the odds between players of differing ability levels. This is a crucial technique for training a team like the Avengers who have wildly varied powers. Weight throws are also used as a sport unto themselves when tossed for distance, height, or accuracy. Some sports have accuracy exercises, handy if you day job sometimes involves playing keepaway with the bad guys. You can actually get weighted throws as arborculture or sport equipment, or just use what you have as Betty did here.
Balance games can involve simply balancing things on your head or moving with things balanced. The egg-and-spoon race is a handheld version.
Vocabulary hopscotch can be played in any language for spelling, reading, or other practice.
Handwalking is a fun circus skill that many people can learn to do. Any agility gameboard can be used as a challenge for alternative modes of travel such as this.
[To be continued in Part 11 ...]
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Natasha Romanova, Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Betty Ross, Bucky Barnes.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Mention of human trafficking and nonconsensual drug use. Slightly offstage sexual violence. Dubcon/Noncon.
Summary: Sometimes the Black Widow needs to hunt, and sometimes she needs help settling her personality afterwards. Uncle Phil arranges an extra ageplay session.
Notes: Hurt/comfort. Family. Fluff and angst. BAMF!Black Widow. Black Widow is creepy. Spiders. Coping skills. Asking for help and getting it. Hope. Nonsexual ageplay. Caregiving. Competence. Girl stuff. Toys and games. Gentleness. Trust. #coulsonlives
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20.
"Up the Water Spout" Part 10
Betty went over to the weightlifting rack and boosted one of the 25-pound discs coated in rubber. "Here," she said. "This can be your potsy. It'll give you a little more challenge. Aim for Square 2."
"What do I do with the old one?" Natka asked.
"Balance it on your head while you hop, and don't drop it," Betty said with a smirk.
"... okay," Natka said, a little dubiously. She chucked the heavier potsy into Square 2, barely getting it inside the lines. Then she put the rock on her head and hopped through the squares. She made it to Square 9 before the rock tumbled off.
Betty laughed and waved Natka back to the starting line before venturing into her own second turn.
Phil was already imagining other variants to make this game more challenging for physically fit adults. Steve loved agility training. He could probably be enticed to try hopscotch while balancing an egg on a spoon.
They played a few more rounds. Then they switched to a version where everyone had to throw their potsy on a different square, and you couldn't step on any square that had one in it. The longer jumps complicated the game, especially for Natka who still had her rock balanced atop her head.
"Want to try a different pattern?" Phil asked then.
"I guess," Natka said.
"Can we play swamp hopscotch?" Betty asked.
"Sure," Phil said. "Go ahead and lay out the board."
Swamp hopscotch involved drawing a large rectangle, its border marked by fourteen squares. Betty sketched it out quickly and then left Natka to finish the details while she filled the center with cattails, lily pads, and an enormous alligator rendered in various colors of chalk. Natka just concentrated on making large, clear numbers.
"What are the rules?" Natka asked.
"No potsies this time. First you hop forward from Square 1 to Square 14. Then you hop backward to Square 1 again," Betty said. "You can't land on a line or anywhere inside the Swamp."
It was simple enough to hop forward. Nobody made it more than a few squares backward before landing on a line. It was too hard to aim and balance a the same time. They kept trying, though, and gradually they got better at it. Natka improved faster than the others, her enhanced dexterity giving her an edge.
Then Betty laid out another grid, similar to the first but with the numbers counting by twos. "I used to do stuff like this in grade school," she said. "I'd practice math with it, and later, foreign languages." She hopped along the squares, counting aloud in Spanish. "Some people write vocabulary words on the grid too."
Natka went through counting in Russian, then Japanese on the way back.
"Show off," Betty said, but she was smiling.
Taking up the chalk, Natka laid out a new design in orange. Inside the squares she used blue to write the elegant squiggles of Hindi. Phil wasn't fully fluent in that language, but he recognized "knife" and "milk." In the top box, to his surprise, Natka drew the symbol for "OM."
"Did you learn that last one from Bruce, or on your own?" Betty asked.
"Bruce," said Natka. Then she flipped neatly onto her hands and made her way through the grid.
"You win," Betty said. "I am not even going to try to duplicate that!"
* * *
Notes:
Handicapping in sports uses weight to even up the odds between players of differing ability levels. This is a crucial technique for training a team like the Avengers who have wildly varied powers. Weight throws are also used as a sport unto themselves when tossed for distance, height, or accuracy. Some sports have accuracy exercises, handy if you day job sometimes involves playing keepaway with the bad guys. You can actually get weighted throws as arborculture or sport equipment, or just use what you have as Betty did here.
Balance games can involve simply balancing things on your head or moving with things balanced. The egg-and-spoon race is a handheld version.
Vocabulary hopscotch can be played in any language for spelling, reading, or other practice.
Handwalking is a fun circus skill that many people can learn to do. Any agility gameboard can be used as a challenge for alternative modes of travel such as this.
[To be continued in Part 11 ...]
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2014-09-26 08:44 am (UTC)Glad I could help.
>> I'm lousy at hula hoop and a disaster at jump rope, and hopscotch interested me only once I figured out that jumping one-footed, or backward, was actually challenging. I don't think I could replicate Natka's feat with the stone, but balance games are among my favorites as an adult. <<
I enjoy balance games too. I probably couldn't balance a stone on my head while jumping. Walking, yes, I'm quite good at. But I once saw someone trot with a book on his head. Not a few paces, but a good 20 yards or so. Impressive feat.
>> I love the focus on teaching and learning in this series. (And, actually, in several of your others. Theme located!) <<
Yep, that is a favorite theme of mine and I do it often.