Who: Siblings of Swole Diego and Gideon (Gidiego, or Dideon if you will) What: Getting swole in the bod (and in the feels, puke) Where: A gym When: This morning Ratings/Warnings: Swearing, talks of feels, Diego's perpetual grossed out face.
Gideon Nav left the women’s locker room in a sweaty black t-shirt that read “Welcome to the Bone Zone”, a coat flung haphazardly on her shoulders next to her gym bag. Training every day was one of her habits she’d never break; it had saved her sanity more times than she could count, and besides, she frequently ran into her friends here. Point of fact, there was Diego Hargreeves, huffing and puffing away looking like a Man with a Plan, a plan that Gideon was only too cheery to interrupt. Giving Diego good-natured shit was her kind of plan, after all.
“How very strapping,” she said once he had safely replaced the equipment, pulling her water bottle out of her bag and twisting the cap off with relish. “Look at you! Keep it up and you might actually be a real contender one day.”
Diego paused at the bottom of a squat to flip Gideon the bird with an exaggerated slowness just to show off. He said bullshit like ‘my body is a temple’ with a straight face because Diego backed it up with working out and running and drinking terrible protein shakes. He was never the strongest Hargreeves, much to his forever chagrin that accolade went to Luther, but Diego honestly liked the steady routine of exercise. Boxing, for example, gave him a focus when he had none, it was an outlet for all of the anger he held inside of him that he refused to burn off with self-destructive behaviors (unless you counted his vigilantism, which, well…). Now that he was growing as a person or some shit, and wasn’t being eaten alive with bitterness, he still found a sense of peace and the ability to just lose himself in reps.
Well, peace until Gideon showed up.
“Look at you,” he said, mouth twisted in a smirk. “Walking around, carrying a bag, drinking some water. Acting like you did something today, congratulations. Might want to throw a little bit of that water on your face too, really sell it.” To actually befriend Diego was to know that the sarcasm was a typical greeting. He grabbed a wipe and cleaned off the machine because he was an asshole, but one who knew that sitting in someone else’s sweat was a dick move. “Are you done walking, or do you need to take another lap?”
Gideon nodded throughout his little diatribe, a big grin on her face (what could be seen of her face beneath her aviators, of course). She’d lived through two decades of Harrow’s abuse, not to mention the tomb nuns and Crux’s foul rantings (fucking Crux, she thought to herself reflexively); Diego’s shit was easy-peasy comparitively speaking because she knew he meant it kindly, in the friendly way. “Oh, you want to take a walk with me, then?” she said, eyeing him with no little concern. “Of course, of course, it’ll be a nice cool down for me, and maybe - just maybe - fantastically challenging cardio for you.”
She took another greedy sip of water, stretched, and cracked something a necromancer would likely be concerned about. “What’s new in your world, Diego? Stabbed any interesting people lately?”
“Fuck no,” Diego scoffed, as if he was offended by the very notion that he would seek out company. He was a lone wolf, after all, snarl, growl. But fine, he supposed if Gideon needed to surround herself with people, he would participate. Not because he wanted to, of course, but just because Gideon might have fallen down and had a heart attack or something and then what? Blame him for not being there? No thank you. So instead, he threw the towel into a bin and followed her.
“Not a whole lot,” he responded, shrugging. “You know most of my shit anyway. Complete with a lack of stabbing, thanks for mentioning it.” Nowadays, Diego’s stabbing tended towards whatever was needed to keep his immediate circle safe--or reckless, dumbass activity with Jacob because they were worried. He twirled a knife around from finger to finger. Diego always had a knife. “You?”
Ugh, small talk. Appreciate it while you had it, Gideon.
Gideon knew damn well how much Diego hated small talk, but she also knew how much he hated big talk - anything emotional and Diego was practically an endangered species. She kept the pace up, letting her heart rate come down gradually, knowing that since today was leg day she’d be more than likely sore if she didn’t do some stretching after.
“All’s well now that everyone’s back from the snowglobe,” she answered, and while it wasn’t in Gideon to demure, she didn’t name-names deliberately. Gideon, truth be told, was okay at small talk but on Diego’s level when it came to big talk, and she was perfectly fine pretending that she was not, in fact, dating Diego’s sister but some other Vanya from a strange and unknown location that was not at all Diego’s planet and Diego’s memories and Diego’s tragic backstory.
Diego grunted, an ambiguous noise that could mean anything from acknowledging that he’d heard Gideon, to getting the shit kicked out of him, to kicking the shit out of someone. Such was the beauty of a grunt, it could say so much or nothing at all. And the trouble with talking to people was that emotions could be summoned literally out of fucking no where. Diego was a simple man (shut up, not like that he was plenty smart), he wanted the people he cared about to be safe and secure at all times. Which meant something like the snow globe bullshit had his raging case of heartburn flaring up like a 5 alarm fire.
“Thankfully,” he said, finally. “Could do without that for the rest of forever.” Understatement. He glanced over at Gideon and then away. Okay, Diego knew Gideon was dating Vanya. He knew it was really none of his business, that the past years of basically estrangement from his family mixed with a childhood spent pitting them against each other meant that Diego really had no grounds to stand on as far as worrying about his siblings.
But goddamn, he was always going to worry about them.
But, counterpoint, he didn’t exactly want to bring that up.
But, counterpoint to the counterpoint, he probably should have.
…
Fuck.
“Are you going to bring up dating my sister or are you going to force me to do it?”
Gideon had been drinking her water, blithely unaware of the shadow of the vulture coursing above her, so at Diego’s unexpected question she swallowed wrong and spent the next few moments beating her (swole) chest with her (swole) arm and coughing her (swole) lungs out. When she was able to inhale oxygen and not lose her shit, she turned to glare at Diego as if it was his fault this conversation was happening (it was, wasn’t it?).
“Looks like you went and did it then, didn’t you?” she asked, clearing her throat. Ugh, why did these conversations fill her with such a cold-fingered dread that it felt like her heart was being squeezed? Was it because all her love affairs had ended in betrayal, heartbreak and unidentified slime? Was it because she worried that she’d mess this one up too? Was it because Vanya was hotter than forty dammits and intelligent to boot and Gideon wondered how on earth she’d managed this? It certainly wasn’t because of Diego, doing the thing where he was trying to loom seriously that Gideon had learned to entirely ignore. “Why, what--- how--- we’re conversing about this, but why? Is there… something you’re---” Spaghetti salad apparently was all Gideon could produce for words. She pretended to cough again, seeking somewhere to hide her bruised ego.
Diego, because he wasn’t heartless as much as he wanted to think the organ in his chest was just a lump of coal, and because yes, he did like Gideon, thumped her on the back in order to alleviate the coughing.
Maybe a little bit harder than needed, because, after all, she forced him to bring the whole thing up and thus it was her fault, but whatever, Gideon was so swole and all.
“Looks like I did,” Diego agreed, completely unperturbed now. Because, aha, although Diego dreaded anything that involved emotions, he was also exceptionally stubborn. Diego refused to back down from a challenge, or to be told he couldn’t do something. The only one who could out stubborn Diego, was himself. Ergo, Diego telling himself that he couldn’t do something meant he would do that thing. Even when that thing made him feel like breaking out into hives.
“We’re talking about it because she’s my sister and you are my--” watch as the wild Diego’s lip curls! “Acquaintance. Person I know. Individual I talk to somewhat willingly.”
Gideon wasn’t privy to Diego somehow managing to talk himself into this conversation, and so she stared at him blearily, trying to determine if he’d been taken over by another form of sentient life or body swapped or something… but nah, Diego’s inability to say “friend” was really on brand for him so she set those fears aside for now.
“Yeah?” she managed, and tossed her water bottle into her bag for now, because it had betrayed her. “What-- is this some kind of-- don’t you dare hurt my sister talk?” She laughed at the ridiculousness of it, then sobered. “...yeah, that’s just what this is, isn’t it? Tombs, Diego. All right. Get on it.”
She straightened her shoulders and eyed him, one eyebrow arched high enough that it was well above the rim of her ugly-ass aviators, the corner of her mouth quirking because while she knew Diego would never use those knives he was fidgeting with on her (probably), she also wanted to impress him with how very much not a fuck up she was, considering Vanya’s track record, which was impressively tied to fuck ups.
“No,” Diego said, quickly, “I don’t really have the right to do that, anyway.” But he supposed that was a bit of a cop out--he’d been in Vallo for nearly a year now and certainly wasn’t the same person he’d been when he first came in. Having a brain dump of memories contributed to that, having friends who would throw fists for him no questions asked, and who he would throw fists for at any given moment contributed to that, having time to actually get to know his siblings, and losing them and getting them back again all contributed to that. Just like he wasn’t the same person, the rest of the Hargreeves weren’t either, and so their relationships weren’t the same. “She’s her own person, and you know I don’t do that misogynistic shit.”
It really was amazing that Diego hadn’t ground his teeth into dust with the way he clenched his jaw. “I wasn’t a great brother. I didn’t do right by Vanya or any of them.” Even if he still stood by the fact that writing a tell-all book about their family secrets was horseshit and cut deeper than any of his knives. They all had their own ways of coping, of course. Diego turned to crime fighting, Klaus turned to drugs, Five to forever preventing the apocalypse, Allison turned to fame, Luther was on the goddamn moon, and Vanya wrote it out. He understood, but it didn’t make it easier.
“At the end of the day, I just want everyone safe and happy,” he settled on, and then returned the eyebrow arch even though he didn’t have terrible sunglasses. He did, however, have a boss ass scar, so that made up for it. “Before you get pissy with me, that goes for you too.”
Gideon was nodding along and experiencing quite the emotional journey, because while she agreed that Vanya didn’t need Diego’s protection, badass or no, it still made her feel warm and squishy and nostalgic for a sibling she’d never had watching him fumble his way through an explanation. She was aware - just by watching - that each of the Hargreeves had their own weight strapped to the shoulders that they bore, and each weight was rooted in guilt and resentment. For as many daddy issues as Gideon had, at least she’d never known her father, not really, not until the end of things when it was too late to do more than hate him. Vanya, Klaus, Five and Diego - they’d had plenty of time to be manipulated and disappointed, again and again and again.
Safe and happy. It was a simple sentiment, and one Gideon appreciated more than a flowery speech. Ordinarily, she’d be sure to give him some shit, and she absolutely would; this tender moment hadn’t slowed her down whatsover... but at present, she met him in the middle instead.
“I like her,” she answered, glancing at the others in the gymnasium, oblivious to this conversation she was having. “I like that she’s wry without being cruel. Warm without being soft. I like that she’s like… I like that she’s basically boobs-height on me, tops, and yet she could probably still evaporate my ass.” Her gaze flicked back to Diego, and she took off her sunglasses, golden eyes squinting in the sun. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m not really bad at this shit, Diego, but I’m not going to do anything but try to treat her right and go from there. And,” she continued, replacing her sunglasses as her smile turned a shade carnivorous, “even if Vanya and I go up in flames, you and I can still be mates. I fucking love awkward. And after all, the other day I realized - did you know, Diego, that your name is my name, just different order of letters and an n? That’s the kind of thing that really means something.”
Diego nodded once, also looking anywhere but directly at Gideon. Everything was much easier to say when he didn’t have to see immediate reactions. “Okay. Okay,” he repeated. There wasn’t much more he could ask for, he knew. The Hargreeves were their own special brand of fucked up, but somehow Diego had found people who were either able to look past it or accept it, he didn’t know how but he was grateful. He wanted all of the rest of them to feel the same way. “That’s enough of that.” Ugh, Jesus Christ, remind him to check a mirror to make sure he hadn’t broken out into hives.
Diego’s mouth twisted in the way it tended to do when he was trying to fight a smile, like the muscles were so rusted that they didn’t know how to move like that. Nowadays they came a little easier, but he would deny it. “Sounds like you spend way too much time thinking about that one. Making connections with me, it’s fine, I get it.” He punched Gideon in the shoulder, one swole guy to another. “Hey. I’d threaten someone for you too, y’know.”
Which, excuse you, look at Diego, he was one threatening vigilante shadow lurking motherfucker, that was some high praise.
“I’ve got a whole laundry list of assholes who’d benefit from getting their vertebrae rearranged, don’t you fret,” Gideon reassured him, smiling a smile that showed all her teeth. Despite being fully capable to handle matters on her own, the thought she might have a friend to back her up was--- goddamn heartwarming, really. But she knew better than to place too strong a point on it; Diego was likely to skitter away like a nervous stray cat, and so she continued to walk, attempting to rearrange her face to something that was more casual than “blinding cheer”.
Still, she couldn’t resist a tiny needling: “I’d offer to challenge Isabela to a fight if she hurts you, but to be honest, I think we’d both enjoy it too much.”
When they’d completed a circuit, she slowed her gait and gestured back to the weights. “Are you going back in, then? I’m going to find something positively disgusting to eat, like a cinnamon roll dripping icing, and contemplate nothing. You’re welcome to continue your ill-fated foray into self-improvement, or you can come with.”
Diego huffed a laugh. The sound still came out gravely and harsh, but was unmistakably--if you knew Diego well enough--a laugh. “Sorry, she’d kick your ass.” But yes, it did do something to the shriveled up lump that was Diego’s heart to hear the same thing. As much as he would grumble about being a lone wolf, Diego quite simply did better when he had people he cared about and people who cared about him. Accepting that care and concern would always be a struggle for him, but it beat being a vigilante busting low-level crooks, alone on the streets by miles and miles.
He rolled his eyes so hard they practically fell out of his head and bounced along the ground. “Jesus Christ, what part of ‘this body is a temple’ don’t you get?” So no, Diego would not be participating in eating a cinnamon roll with enough icing to clog all of his veins, thank you very much. He did, however, have a protein shake handy, because Diego always had a protein shake handy full of kale and eggs and seaweed and flaxseed. “Alright, alright,” he agreed, sounding very much like Gideon was asking for him to pull out each of his fingernails with a toothpick. “But if I have to carry your ass out, I’m never letting you live it down.”