"Hey, Sal, who's that guy over there?"

Nikki laid down her jump rope and joined the lanky Italian on the bench to wrap her knuckles. Sal looked up from his own wrappings. "Who?"

"Red-headed guy on the heavy bag. Not even wearing gym clothes."

The guy in question wore a white button-down shirt untucked over green trousers. He was barefoot.

Sal snorted and started on his right hand.

"Isn't he that 'repent, ye sinners' guy?" Nikki sniffed her wrappings and recoiled slightly. They needed serious washing. Perhaps with hydrochloric acid.

"I think it's 'the end is nigh', actually," Sal said, eyeing her with amusement. "Old buddy of Bernie's, I heard. They came up together, or something."

Nikki frowned. "I thought Bernie was raised in a home?"

"Uh, yeah," Sal agreed, indicating the redhead with his eyes. "Think a guy like that comes out of a normal family?"

Nikki shrugged.

"Angel saw him fight back in the day. Said he was creepy good. Fast. Unpredictable."

"Southpaw," Nikki observed. "Lightweight?"

"Hey, Angel!" Sal called the old coach over and indicated the redhead with his chin. "You saw that dude fight, yeah?"

Angel set down the practice mitts and adjusted his belt. "Yeah, long time ago. Shame he never went pro. Guy made corners like you wouldn't believe. One of those crazy little pitbull guys, y'know? Brick wall wouldn't stop him."

"Well, he is going after that bag like it stole his lunch money," Nikki observed. "What's his name?"

The coach pursed his lips and blew air through them. "Uhhh, something Polish."

"He looks Irish."

"With that mick hair? Yeah. Soszcinsky? Kryzstof? Something with a K...Kovacs. That's it: 'Kovacs'."

Nikki eyed the redhead thoughtfully.

"What's going on inside that head of yours, girl?" Sal asked.

She grinned and snatched up her gloves.

"Nikki?" Angel called, but she was already climbing into the ring.

"Hey, red!" she called, leaning on the ropes. "Hey, Mr. The-End-Is-Nigh!"

The man turned slowly. His tousled hair was dark red with sweat. He looked up at the petite woman in the ring. Her t-shirt read "Fight Like A Girl".

"I'm fighting a southpaw in a few weeks. Wanna help me out?" He approached the ring cautiously, slipping his hands out of his gloves.

"Been a long time since I sparred," he replied in a voice like a match striking.

"Well, I've never fought a southpaw." She grinned ruefully and ruffled her spiky black hair with her glove. "And you may have noticed that there's a shortage of females around here. What are you, like, 135, 140?"

He shrugged and jumped up onto the edge of the ring.

Out of the corner of her eye, Nikki saw Sal and Angel watching them. She turned, and they pretended to be discussing something unrelated. They looked very intent on their non-topic. She rolled her eyes.

The redheaded man stepped between the ropes.

"Where'd you get those gloves?" she asked, eyeing the pitiful lumps of leather he set down on the mat. "Bernie?"

He nodded and unbuttoned his shirt. "Lends 'em to me whenever I come in."

"I heard you and he..." Nikki's voice trailed off as the man shrugged out of his shirt, revealing a lean but thickly-muscled torso under a sleeveless undershirt.

Wow, she thought.

And then: What kind of homeless guy is cut like that?

The man glared at her with dead brown eyes, then leaned down to pick up his gloves.

"By the way," she said, struggling to cover her lapse, "I'm Nikki. You're Kovacs, right?"

He grunted acknowledgment as he laced up the old-fashioned gloves with his teeth. Her eyes popped, watching the cords of muscle contract under his pale skin.

Nikki leaned over the ropes toward Sal and Angel. "Are you guys gonna corner us, or are you too busy holding down the floor over there?"

The two men wandered over to lean on the ring, but Angel looked distinctly uneasy. He shot a look at Kovacs.

"I won't hurt her," the man rasped.

"Better not be for lack of trying, red," Nikki declared, eyeing him. He was not a large man, but she was a small woman. In addition to the thirty-odd pounds he had on her, he was perhaps four inches taller. And what had Angel called him? 'A crazy pitbull'? He looked junkyard mean. No. Hard. Hard like those pecs of his.

Stop checking him out, you dumb bitch, she told herself. Now touch gloves.

Nikki held her left out to brush Kovacs' right, then brought her gloves to her face. His southpaw stance was already throwing her off. She circled right to give herself some breathing room. His pale brown eyes watched her over his gloves. She tore her gaze away to watch his chest. That was where she would see the movement.

The first jab was a feint, his right hand stretching out to hold her off. She matched it with her left, then ducked in for a cross to his midsection. Kovacs danced away easily. He kept testing the distance with his jab, not putting any power behind it. Annoyed, she continued circling, eyes on that left hand of his.

Lightning-fast, he scooted around her right side (she was circling right into him, dammit) and tagged her with a left hook to the liver.

"You'd be done if that was for real, chica," Angel called.

"I know that," Nikki muttered. Frustrated, she dove in for a jab straight to his midsection. When Kovacs twisted to block, she clipped his ear with a right cross.

"Watch the body!" Sal warned her opponent.

Nikki tried a left hook to the head, but he was already inside her guard with a double jab to her stomach. She circled out, casting a glance at Angel. He shrugged.

Kovacs raised his eyebrows. You still in this?

"If this chick I'm fighting is half as good as you, I'm done for," she admitted, lowering her gloves. "Come work out with me sometimes."

A strange expression flitted over the redhead's face, but Nikki had no time to assess it.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Bernie called, approaching the ring. "Get outta that goddamn ring, Walter."

A/N: It's been brought to be attention that, in the GN, Kovacs has brown eyes, not blue. I've made corrections throughout this story (although I will keep the blue-eyed concept in my other ongoing Wm fic "You Are Rorschach". Thanks for reading!