Work Text:
You don’t know how long you’ve been wandering around this place. You don’t even really know what this place is. You’re not sure how much you care unless you can find a way to destroy it.
All you know is you’ve just walked into a room filled with weights and exercise machines. You can hear someone in here besides you, but you can’t see them yet. Since you don’t think you have anything better to do, you decide to head for the noise.
It only takes you a few minutes to see the cause of it. There’s someone there bench pressing. A girl not even as tall as you spots him, but he doesn’t seem to need it. He’s lifting easily, even though he appears to be lifting a lot.
You can’t tell how much weight he’s put on to the bar, but it’s more than you’ve seen anyone lift before. “Four hundred and ninety pounds,” she tells you proudly. (What’s she so cocky about? It’s not even her accomplishment.)
But it is pretty impressive. “Can he do five hundred?” you ask. You try not to look too excited as he sets the bar down, and the girl fetches some weights. She slips them on the bar, and the dude lifts it almost as easily as he did before.
You nod appreciatively. “How high can he go?”
You expect the girl to answer again, but she looks down at him. “I don’t know. Equius, how much can you bench?”
“The highest I’ve done is five hundred and thirty,” he says, barely pausing. You notice he grunts slightly when he lifts again, but he doesn’t struggle much.
“Holy shit, seriously?” Without a word, he replaces the bar and looks up at his spotter. She grins and adds another thirty pounds. It takes a bit longer this time since she has to rearrange the weights on each end from largest to smallest. You don’t offer to help her.
Equius (that was his name, right?) has a bit more trouble this time, since he didn’t work up to it slowly and you suppose this is his limit. Still, there’s no doubt that he really can properly bench five hundred and thirty pounds.
“Holy shit,” you say again as you watch him continue his reps. He only does ten before setting the bar back down and sitting up.
He looks at you with confidence and pride, and you take that as permission to approach. “Holy shit, you’re so strong.” He’s sweating a lot, but you notice his muscles are literally twice the size of yours. “I wish I was as strong as you.”
“It’s good to see someone who appreciates strength as much as I do,” he says. You think he looks like he’s sizing you up. You think you’re right about that when he asks “So, how much can you bench?”
“Three hundred ten.” You shrug, as if to say it’s not much. To him you’d guess it’s nothing.
He doesn’t seem to think the same way though. “That’s good,” he says, and you think he really means it. You start to stand up straighter as he continues. “You could always improve, I could too. That’s why I come here so often, and I always try to lift more. I love being strong. I love seeing strong people.”
“Me too, you’re completely right.” You nod eagerly. “I’d love to be strong. The stronger I get, the better I feel. It’s good. To have someone who can crush things with their bare hands. And crack skulls.”
He pauses for a moment, doubtlessly to mull over what you’ve just said. “Strength is more of an art for me,” he says hesitantly.
“It’s definitely an art.” You find yourself nodding again.
You hear a soft snort and instinctively turn to look for the source. What you find is the Dirk human, twenty feet or so away, turning away from you and starting to use another machine.
He was always a little shit, wasn’t he? You’ve never seen him lift though. You never really cared enough to watch, to be fair. He presses his arms forward and you watch the weights in the machine lift. To your surprise, he manages to lift more than one of the weights. You crane your neck to try to see his arms; you don’t remember his muscles being that big.
“He’s strong too,” Equius says. You’re mildly surprised to hear him next to you rather than behind you, but you’re both watching this human.
“He’s not even struggling, is he?” That’s what you’re guessing, anyway. You don’t hear any grunting or wheezing, and he doesn’t have any trouble keeping up a steady pace. Holy shit how could you not know how strong he is? “How much weight is that?”
“I can’t tell just by looking, but it’s almost as much as I do on that machine.” Yeah, see that seems like the kind of thing you should have known. If you had cared about the humans.
You watch him for a few more reps before he moves on to working his legs. “I want to get strong,” you say, turning to Equius. “I’m feeling so pumped right now, I want to get so strong.”
“Come on then, get on the bench. I’ll spot you.” He starts to take weights off the bar he had been using. The girl, who checked out of the conversation ages ago and laid face down on the floor, rolled out of his way.
This time, you help set up, and you lay on the bench. You’re going to get so strong, it’ll be so awesome.