Author: Sami-pi
Pairing: established 1x2x1 and 3x4x3
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Timeline: Post EW, Quatre's CEO of WEI, Heero, Duo, Trowa, and Wufei are all Preventers, and they're all around 30ish.
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing, its characters and its trappings, belong to Bandai, Sotsu, and... I was sure there was someone else in there... sorry! ^^;;; Anyway, this fic is not for profit, just for fun.
12:09
The thing about new recruits was that they were intensely dumb. Wufei couldn't remember if he'd been that dense when he was eighteen but he hoped to any and all holy powers that he hadn't been.
Or maybe he had, and that would probably explain the whole being goaded into killing Treize and then falling in with his daughter's army thing.
Right.
Not just new recruits, then.
The problem with youth was their utter and abject stupidity.
"C'mon, Margolis, you're catching up! Ten more and you'll have him!"
"No way, no way. Don't slow down, Park! You're not gonna let a girl beat you, are you?"
Shouts of encouragement and derision alike rose from the cluster of kids in the weights section and floated across the gym to Wufei on his treadmill. He sighed. Every year it was the same: you gave them a free pass to the gym and they'd be in it every spare moment that they got. You got enough of them together, and they'd start challenging each other to wickedly daft and banal competitions. It never ever failed.
What was it about joining a paramilitary organization that brought this out in people?
Well, a weight lifting contest, in and of itself, wasn't necessarily the dumbest thing they could be doing: last year a recruit had been put on permanent disability due to the "most creative dive" contest. But a weight lifting contest in which they tested both the amount lifted and the number of reps completed was just asking for trouble.
They'd been at it for about thirty-five, forty, minutes now and they were down to the final two from their initial twenty. A couple of the guys on the sidelines, Anderson in particular, looked like he'd really wrenched something. Classic. Wufei couldn't wait to see what injuries this Margolis and this Park could come up with. He hit the button to slow his treadmill down to a stop.
At that moment, Heero and Duo chose to come in from the pool.
Wufei thought this might be an interesting development.
And he was right.
Margolis said: "Wow."
Park said: "What?"
But the difference between them was that Margolis had been at rest while Park had had his 180 lb barbell up around his ears.
How he'd managed that was beyond Wufei as the two had been doing bicep curls, but that was really irrelevant because regardless of how it happened the result was that Park fell backward and the barbell fell right across his neck.
Instantly the entire group of newbies commenced with the screaming. Some of them started crying as Park's face began to turn an unflattering shade of raspberry. Some of the criers weren't girls either.
Wufei made a little mental note.
As soon as they heard the 'thud' of Park's body hitting the mats, Heero and Duo broke into a dead sprint. After a decade of experience, you caught on pretty fast. Twenty new recruits crowded into the weight-lifting area? Accident waiting to happen. A loud 'thud' followed by even louder scream? Accident had happened.
Wufei waded into the fray just in time to see Heero pick up the barbell and toss it off to one side. Some of the recruits who hadn't been crying before were certainly crying now. But Wufei had to admit that Heero's strength, especially when boosted by adrenaline, was actually quite scary.
Duo performed a cursory check of Park's injuries and deemed it safe to move him. He and Heero hefted the boy to his feet and half-dragged, half-carried him over to the emergency medical office in the gym. The recruits parted like the Red Sea before them.
Wufei called in the accident to the main medical office and also arranged for a physiotherapist to tend to the little baby injuries he could see scattered throughout the crowd.
"All right, children. Let's wipe our noses and go get changed. Those who need it, medical is ready for you so just head straight on up. Those who were smart enough to quit while they were ahead, congratulations, you have ten minutes to rest before your first afternoon classes."
As a group, the recruits all started to shuffle off towards the locker rooms, heads down, a little shame-faced.
"Oh," Wufei called out after them. "And, by the way, attendance at today's hand-to-hand combat lesson with me is mandatory. So I'll see you all at 2."
OWARI
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