fandomtownies | Atlas Gym; Tuesday [06/20].

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Atlas Gym; Tuesday [06/20].

For a brief moment, Gladio almost lost it when he was just going about his gym business for the day and he heard a squeaking sound echoing through the place. Because they had all been very thorough in going through every square inch of the place (it was kind of impressive, really, how big this place was compared to what it looked like from the outside) to remove all the chickens (save for the one now hanging up on the wall in the lobby with the sign that said 'Incidents of Chicken Sabotage Will Be Prosecuted With Extra Pushups and Extra Laps') from the equipment, the mats, the punching bags...

...but it turned out that one of the employees had just gotten new shoes that squeaked when she walked.

"Why?" Gladio had to ask, even if to no one in particular except for his lunchtime Cup Noodle^TM. "Why would anyone do that?"

Atlas is open!

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Nell was here bright and early. Her head was whirling with some new ideas for teas that she wanted to put together, so she took a few minutes to do some of her tai chi to help center herself for her workout.

And, of course, Gladio would swing around to greet her, with a nod and a smile and a gold star offered out to her on his finger.

"Morning, Nell."

"Morning," she said cheerfully, but looked again at the sticker with a shake of her head. "I don't get this whole sticker thing, but I thank you for it. She carefully took out the sheet he'd given her last time and stuck the new one there too.

"It's just gotten to a point," Gladio offered, with a huff of a laugh at Nell's response, "where it makes my life easier just to make it consistent across the board."

He even had a chart now, at his desk, to remind him of just how much the sticker thing had apparently blown up, but, hey, it had been working pretty great as a motivator for some people.

"But how've you been, Nell? You have a good weekend?"

"They're interesting, I suppose," Nell said, "And i'm happy to have one if they make your life easier, but what are they for? Or better maybe, what is their purpose?" Stickers were not a part of what homeschooling was available for girls at God's Cloud of Glory church.

"My weekend was good," she said. "Though yesterday's field trip was a bit rougher than Lana planned - no real problems, though. Was Noctra good for you on Friday?"

"It's for showing up consistently," Gladio said, figuring that was probably the clearest explanation of it, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Gold stars for a job well done, although you gotta work up to 'em. Most people'll start out with silver before earning gold, but you've definitely been on gold for a while now, thus the backlog last week.

"And she was great, actually." His grin went a little proud at that. "Better at push-ups than her dad is already, but that's a low bar right out the gate. She's been a pretty good kid for me so far when I keep an eye on her, although that's only been just the few times.

"What was so rough," he couldn't help being a little curious, "about the trip yesterday?"

Nell looked at them and smiled. "Never got nothing for doing a good job before."

She then smiled up at Gladio. "Thank you."

A moment to contemplate the stickers and then she set them aside. "I'm glad she was good for you, she sounds like a sweet baby."

She sighed. "We were supposed to go to an agricultural planet, but Portalocity dropped us off at a casino on a rather dangerous planet. Lana called a friend of hers to come help make sure we stayed safe till she could get us home and I looked out for two of the younger students to make sure they were okay. Nothing happened, but it was a, well, a rather sketchy place."

The soft smile on Gladio's face grew into a grin when Nell looked up at him, before he made sort of a dismissive expression while shaking his head. "Don't thank me," he said, "you're the one who earned 'em.

"And she is," he mused, then snorted faintly. "So she clearly doesn't take after her namesake, except when she's sleeping. Then you can really see it.

"Sounds like an agricultural planet would have been much more up your alley," he also pointed out, "but, I mean, hey, at least it sounds like it was still an experience, right?"

Nell nodded and tucked them away and smiled at him again. "So the person she was named for was a mite difficult then?" she teased.

"And yes, I was looking forward to seeing the agricultural planet, but well," she shook her head, "Certainly got to see things I'd never expect. The whole place just felt dangerous, you know? But we were all fine, nothing happened, and we got home safe."

"A mite," Gladio snorted, but the smile on his face was fond, if a little distant with loss, "would be a nice way of putting. But I think you'd have liked him, Noct. Usually took a little warming up to, but he wasn't so bad, once you got to know him.

"And that's good," he nodded, as if in approval, "that nothing happened, though I feel like, if anything did, between at least you and Lana, not even counting anyone else who was there, you'd've all been able to handle it."

Nell saw the touch of loss cross his face and, without thinking, reached out to gently touch him on the arm. "I'm sure I would have liked him. I'm sorry I can't meet him."

Nell nodded. "And Steven and the Detective were there - somewhere - which means Marc could have been there if necessary, I suppose."

Some of the warmth and gratitude that Gladio felt at Nell's hand on his arm faded slightly with the disconsolate grunt that Marc's name seemed to have wedged out of him, but at least it also seemed to serve as a good distraction from thinking too much on some of the more complicated feelings that her touch had stirred up.

"If anything," he grunted again, this one slightly different than the last, "I know you wouldn't've put up with any of his crap, either."

Much easier to just talk about the dead friend, apparently.

"I wouldn't, no," she agreed with a teasing smile. "He'd have to mind his p's and q's around me."

That teasing smile certainly managed to tease an easier grin out of Gladio, who grunted a third time and shook his head. "You'd think a prince would've had better manners, but you've be wrong. Even with Iggy there trying to brow-beat 'em into him."

"Princes, pfft. What do they know from manners," she joked. "Given too much too easily if you ask me. Though I'd imagine some of them can grow up all right."

"Yeah," said Gladio, with full knowledge of the silver spoon that'd he'd been born with in his own mouth, but also knowing that he hadn't spent all those years training just to lean on it, either, "he turned out pretty okay in end."

"Can't imagine that a big part of it wasn't having you and Iggy around," Nell said gently.

"Definitely never let us forget that we were definitely there for a job," Gladio huffed faintly, "more often than not."

One they genuinely grew to enjoy and spent the last ten years desperately missing, but anyway...

Nell laughed. "Sounds like a spoiled young man indeed."

"He...did really make up for it in the end, though," Gladio allowed, now feeling a little pang of guilt; it was one thing shit talking Noct with the guys, that was just what they did, but now he sort of felt bad, like he was painting a bad picture of him for Nell.

Not that anything they'd said hadn't been true, though.

"He did kind of...you know..." He hesitated a moment, but Nell had always been (sometimes uncomfortably so) honest about her own past, but Gladio hadn't exactly paid a lot of that forward, "give up everything up to save the world. Pretty selfless, when it counted."

She touched him lightly on the arm again in comfort and support. "That's what really matters in the long run, isn't it? That when push comes to shove you do the right thing. And I can tell he must have been special to you."

Nell was open about her life because it didn't matter. It just was. Some details were hard to talk about or she hesitated because of people's reactions, but it was just the way things were.

What a difference a couple of months or so could make; Nell's hand on his arm again, a far cry from her pulling back and retreating over that unexpected drop. Gladio wanted to do nothing more than to take that hand on his arm into his own hand, give it a reassuring, grateful squeeze, maybe a little more, but all he did was tilt an apprecitive smile her way.

"Kind of an understatement," he said. And he thought of saying he'd tell her about it some time, but with Nell's frankness in mind, he shrugged a little. "Shield of the King. We were pretty much stuck together since before we were even born."

Her face clouded a bit in sympathy. "No real choice in your life, then," she said. "I can understand that a little."

"Yeah," Gladio said softly, with a faint smile her way to watch, "imagine you probably can...

"...don't get me wrong," he then added hastily. "I've always been proud and honored to be Noct's Shield, and I was determined to always be nothing but the best Shield I could possibly be. But there were a lot of times, when I was a lot younger and a lot dumber, that I really resented him for it....especially when it felt like he just didn't care. But I know now that he had a pretty big weight on his shoulders, too. And I'm just glad I got to be someone to help him carry it."

"Same thing goes for you," she said gently. "You're entitled to feel the way you did, but you also did what you needed to and found the good in it I'm sure you were an amazing shield and no matter how he seemed, I'm sure he truly valued you."

Gladio let out a soft breath of a laugh, in contraction to his thoughts, lingering on how, in the long wrong, it was probably Ignis, not him, that ended up earning the title more.

"Naw," he said, "he did..." He cracked a bit of a grin. "...eventually. Took him a while, though..."

How did they even get on this, anyway? Oh, yeah, that's right...

"So, yeah, bit on an easier time with Noctra so far, but if she ever picks up a fishing pole, we're all doomed."

"A fishing pole?" Nell said chuckling. "Why a fishing pole?"

Gladio groaned and rolled his eyes, with an exaggeration that tried to forget that he was the one who brought it up.

"Guy was obsessed with fishing," he said. "I can't even tell you how many fishing trips I've been dragged out on, Nell. You ever really been fishing? Only thing that beats it out on the excitement scale is watching paint dry."

"Can't say I ever went fishing, but from what I read it sounds like it'd be a great time to bring a book along and just sit and read while everybody else does whatever they want."

You probably couldn't tell just by looking at them that the workout gear that Summer was wearing when she came breezing into the gym much, much later than her usual time were from space, but they were, okay? That was important.

And they totally matched her nails, too, ohmygoooood.

"Summer," Gladio greeted her with a nod, and, of course, a gold star. "Late start today, huh?"

Since she usually came in so much earlier, he was actually feeling a little worried he'd have to start her progress all over again, so it was good to see that it was clearly better late than never.

"I had a pretty busy morning," Summer explained, loftily, with a proud lift of her chin as she took her star and placed it right on her cheek under her left eye, which she did not expect to remain there once she really got sweating, but, for the time being, she imagined looked very super cute. "It was my birthday yesterday, so I was in space celebrating. Which, if we can, means I should probably take it a little easier on the training today."

"Yeah, sure," Gladio agreed easily enough with a bit of a snort. "You can consider a light day your belated birthday present, from me to you. Happy birthday, by the way. You have a good one?"

By the context clues alone, he could probably guess, though.

Stark wandered in to the gym today, later than usual, looking a bit tired but also very pleased with himself. Smug, even.

He waved to Gladio as he entered, showing off his very sparkly pink and blue color changing nails. Was he keeping his eye out for another usual gym visitor even though he'd practically just left her? Of course.

You know, math was never really Gladio's strongest subject, but something about putting two and two together when two of his morning regulars were both coming in much later than usual with a certain swagger to their step....Granted, Summer always had a certain smug confidence when she came in here, but getting it from Stark, too, definitely added something to the equation, now, didn't it?

Either way, he made it in, even if it was late, so he met that wave with a nod and a gold star extended out on a sadly not nearly as impressive finger. "Stark. How's it going?"

That other ginger gym regular was doing wonders for someone's confidence.

"It's going well," Stark said, grinning just a little. "Very well. Thank you."

The sticker went on his shirt, as usual.

"How are you?"

"Good!" Gladio responded. Clearly not as good as some people that afternoon, apparently, but still! "Pretty good. Pretty sure we're officially rubber chicken free now, so that's kinda nice. Glad you could still make it in today."

"I had a late morning," Stark said, smile still on his face. "But I didn't want to miss my workout. But maybe something lighter today."

"Seems to be a bit of that going around," Gladio observed, with the kind of faint smirk that knew it pointless being subtle. "Might be a good day to focus on upper body and arms, avoid putting too much focus on the lower extremity muscles..."

In other words, if there was any day to skip leg day...this would probably be it.

Stark ducked his head a little.

"Do you have any recommendations for me?"

Gladio grinned a little bit more.

"Free weights," he said, which had been the same thing he'd set Summer off to do this week, too. "Curls and dumbbells. Keep 'em light, don't over-extend yourself, and most importantly, keep hydrated."

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Atlas Gym; Tuesday [06/20].

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