Chapter Text
“Hey, Partner.”
Thomas is weight lifting when Subaru takes a seat on the bench beside him. He wants to reach for his earpiece and turn up the volume, but that would mean releasing the dumbbell and acknowledging Subaru’s presence.
Ever since the fight with Fugan and Mugan, Thomas noticed Subaru has taken to bothering him more frequently. He doesn’t exactly mind the intrusion, but it’s not particularly enjoyable either. It really depends on what Subaru decides to bother him with.
Thomas continues to weightlift, choosing the middle ground between ignoring and discreetly listening to Subaru, but not outright dismissing him.
“So, I’ve been wondering, do you ever switch it up?” Subaru leans forward, and Thomas catches a glimpse of him with a hand on his chin. “I feel like I always see you doing this exercise…” Subaru trails off, then continues with a burst of energy. The bench jostles when he straightens up, fist slamming into his palm. “You have to switch it up, you know. If you do the same thing, your body’s just going to get used to it.”
Thomas sighs. He doesn’t correct Subaru’s mistake that he has in fact ‘switched it up’, and done a different exercise with Subaru around.
Instead, he sets the weights down and stands. Subaru yelps at the sudden motions then starts protesting as Thomas walks away from him.
“Wait, come back! It was just some advice, you don’t have to leave, Thom- Oh!”
Thomas returns with two slightly heavier, and bigger dumbbells, making Subaru’s protests trail off into an intrigued hum. Thomas knows Subaru is leaning even closer to compare the weights, but Thomas moves on with his reps. Instead of lifting up and curling the dumbbells towards his body, Thomas switches forms to simply raise the weights in front of him.
Subaru makes a thoughtful sound next to him. “I guess that’s switching it up…”
Subaru stops talking as if he’s deep in thought, and Thomas wonders what more does Subaru want from him.
“Hey, so you know how your NEXT powers work?” Thomas does not answer him, because of course he knows how his powers work. They are his powers after all, how could he not. “Does that mean you can lift me?”
Thomas pauses to look at Subaru. It’s a mistake that encourages Subaru to continue his thought process.
“I think this is an important thing to know. Partners carry each other all the time! Like!” Subaru pauses suddenly, trying to search his memories to support his claims. “Like! When Tiger carried Barnaby when he couldn’t stand! Or that one time Barnaby carried Tiger, because the old man fell through the roof!”
Thomas does not tell Subaru that those are entirely different types of carry. The carry with Barnaby not being able to stand was more Tiger being Barnaby’s temporary crutch. In that example, Barnaby supported most of his own weight, Tiger was there as something for him to lean on. Thomas is confident he can do this for Subaru if something ever happened to him.
In the other example, Tiger was being fully held in Barnaby’s arms. Thomas isn’t so sure he can do this for Subaru.
“-let’s try it!”
Thomas has one moment to get out of his head as Subaru jumps off the bench and poses in front of him.
“Okay! I’m ready. Lift me.”
Thomas does not entertain the idea. He looks away and pretends to be busy.
“Don’t be like that! Thomas, just try it. It’s for science!”
Thomas turns his whole body away. Subaru follows until he’s back in his line of sight.
“Come on,” Subaru pouts. “It’s important. The answer is crucial.”
Thomas levels him with a blank stare, and is about to tell him off, but their PDAs go off.
“Bonjour, Heroes.”
At the sound of Agnes’ greeting, Subaru is already running off to change into his suit. Ivan is setting aside his shurikens and across the room Antonio is rising from his bench lift.
All three heroes listen to Agnes’ information before heading out to change.
If Thomas takes a slight detour to check how much weight Rock Bison lifts, so he knows what he has to work up to in order to lift Subaru, then it’s nobody's business but his own.