fandomtownies | Atlas Gym; Tuesday [08/22].

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Atlas Gym; Tuesday [08/22].

One minute, everything in the gym seemed fine, and Gladio ducked into the office for a few minutes to take care of a few business phone calls, and when he came back out, the entire weight area was absolutely covered in chalk, like there'd been a very localized powdery snowstorm in one particular area, and he groaned.

"I just missed that powerlifter who comes in, didn't I?" he asked, but didn't even need a confirmation and he sighed.

"Does he even actually lift, or does he just come in, chalk up, get it everywhere, maybe do a couple reps and then he's out of here?"

Sonja just shrugged and Gladio shook his head.

"I'll go get the broom."

And then maybe see about getting a new sign orders.

Atlas is open!

[[ and inspired by this. ]]

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Nell was staring at the chalk. "How do you manage to get that everywhere?"

"The only thing I'm stuck managing," said Gladio with a shake of his head and a sigh, "is the clean-up. I go do some work for two seconds, and this is what I come out to..."

He then looked over at Nell a little ruefully. "But, hey, if you need chalk..." He gestured and shook his head, almost tempted to massage his forehead a little as he was working through just how he wanted to handle this situation.

"I think I'll pass on the chalk," Nell said, "but I could have this all cleaned up in two shakes of a lamb's tail if you'd like some help."

"Nah, don't worry about it," Gladio said, shaking his head again and waving his hand a little dismissively, but he did give Nell a grateful smile for her having offered. "You're here to work out, not clean up, and I've got people who work here for money to take care of things like that. But it's nice of you to want to help."

"Cleaning can be an excellent workout," Nell said with a grin, "but I'll leave it to your staff."

Some of whom had been looking rather hopeful that they might get out of cleaning duty and now looked resigned to their fate.

"Any suggestions on where I should start today?" she asked. "Message the rowing machine?"

Gladio didn't know what they had to complain about; as far as things to have to clean up in a gym went, gym chalk didn't seem that bad, really. And they didn't have to deal with an apparently unruly lifter or have to eat the cost.

"I don't think I've ever cleaned anything enough to be considered a workout," Gladio had to admit, but, then again, he had grown up with people to do that for him and his bar for what was considered a workout was....pretty high, really. "But," and here he grinned at her a little, "you mentioning the rowing machines just makes me wonder if you'd be interested in ever taking that skill out to an actual rowboat sometime."

Gladio, Gladio... A full top to bottom house cleaning and scrubbing, moving furniture to properly wash the floors, up and down ladders to clean the windows inside and out, then laundry on tot of all of that... It was a good workout.

She tilted her head to look up at him. "Yes. Yes, I think I would be interested in trying it out in an actual rowboat. That sounds wonderful, actually."

Well, he'd never had to do that! That's what Ignises were for! And compared to cleaning up after Noctis, Gladio was easy. He actually cleaned up after himself.

And the more confirmation to the idea Nell offered, the more Gladio's grin seemed to grow. "Then I think," he said, "we have our next date idea. I know there's a bunch up at the school we can borrow, 'cause I've used 'em plenty for my classes."

Nell's smile grew as well. "That sounds wonderful."

She chuckled to herself. "I saw some old movie or something where they did that and the lady had a parasol. It made a pretty picture, but I don't think it would work well for me."

"No?" asked Gladio with a faint chuckle, before his tilted his head at Nell, stroking his chin thoughtfully as he tried to picture it. "Not much of a parasol kind of girl? Or do you just think it'd be better suited for me?"

She paused a moment to imagine Gladio delicately holding a pretty parasol and chuckled. "Not sure which of us would look sillier."

Nell imagined herself on the rowboat and realized there was one large problem. "Only thing is, I don't know how to swim, so we'd have to make sure I stayed in the inside of the boat."

"I think that's a pretty open and shut case," Gladio snorted at the idea that somehow anyone would think Nell would look even remotely more silly than he would with a pretty little parasol, but it was mildly fascinating that she thought there would be any competition there.

"And I remember you mentioning that," he assured her. "Don't worry there. I wouldn't let anything happen to you, even if you did go overboard."

She laughed at the expression on his face, but still the idea of him with a parasol was amusing.

"I know you wouldn't," Nell said. "but I kind of like knowing I can take care of myself if I have to, so maybe I need to think about listening how to swim a bit."

"Offer still stands on those swim lessons," Gladio reminded her. "And I'm sure you could probably talk to....well, maybe not Annie, she's going to have her hands pretty full here soon. But maybe...Summer or Liz? Lana? I don't know where any of them are on swimming, but I'm sure there's got to be someone on staff here with that experience. I can ask around."

They did have that pool downstairs, after all!

"Swim lessons would be good," Nell agreed. "Summer is a little scary, though she was quite nice while your were missing. But even just, what do they call it? Drownproofing? That would work, I think. Enough to go rowing."

"I definitely like the idea of you being more drownproof," Gladio decided, grinning as if there was ever any doubt. "And Summer's not so bad, so long as you stay on her good side, but I can think of someone else in present company that that could apply to, as well."

"Hmmm... you, Summer. You, Summer..." Nell smiled up at him. "No offense to Summer, butI think I'll go with a known quantity."

Summer was keeping her outfit simple but still true to color scheme that day, feeling like she was really ready to just focus on her weights for a good while before hitting that cardio, and...

"...what happened to all the chalk?"

Sorry, Gladio. You just couldn't escape it.

"It's in the trash," Gladio explained gruffly, with a faint grunt, "which is about where the guy who decided to throw it all over the weight area belongs."

Was he checking tapes later to see who it was? Absolutely.

After several weeks of being an otter and a weekend spent in New Jersey (it was hard to say which Steve had found more traumatizing), Steve was finally back in the gym on Tuesday. "Howzit, Gladio?"

Gladio met that greeting with a lift of his chin. "Steve," he said. "Not too bad." His own few traumatic weeks notwithstanding, but he was doing remarkably well in just sort of putting that all behind him now. "Yourself?"

"I spent a few weeks as a surfboard stealing otter," Steve said with a little smirk. "I was apparently living my best life."

"....were the surfboards regular- or otter-sized?"

Gladiolus Amicitia, out here asking the important questions.

"Regular size," Steve said. "Otter me had big dreams."

"Respect," said Gladio, nodding his approval and looking at Steve a bit speculatively, just trying to picture the otter version of him on these particular heists. "You still got any of those boards?"

"Danny made me give them back," Steve grumbled.

"That's a shame," said Gladio, unable to help grinning at Steve's clear disappointment while expressing some of his own. "But also fair. Here I was thinking maybe we could hit some waves with your ill-gotten gains...

"Did he at least get any pictures?"

"He took many, many pictures," Steve said, "and sent them to many, many people. Would you like them too?"

"Did it snow?" Stark asked when he came in ~~not at all late shh~~.

Indoor snow wasn't that weird compared to most Fandom things.

"I actually almost wish that was the case," Gladio said with a faint grunt and a shake of his head. "Instead, someone just decided to be...very liberal with the lifting chalk."

"Oh," Stark said, frowning. "That's...unfortunate. How are you this week besides the chalk?"

"Besides the chalk?" Gladio asked with a bit of an amused huff. "Pretty good, actually. Really starting to feel the routine come back after....well, everything. How 'bout you? You been doing okay, Stark?"

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Atlas Gym; Tuesday [08/22].

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