Issue 1 Downtime

Natalya stepped into the gym and walked towards the tumbling mats, tossing a gym bag onto a nearby bench. She pulled out an MP3 player and plugged it into the sound system for the area, flipping it over to her "Workout Playlist" and hitting play. The sounds, and particularly the bass, of Daft Punk filled the speakers and she pulled off her warm-up pants, leaving her in a gymnastics one-piece. She tested the mat with her foot as she had started doing with a lot of things, just to convince herself that Morph wasn't hiding in it, then she started the ritual of stretching.

"Aw c'mon, like I'd be the mat," came an amused voice from the doorway to the locker room.

"You offered to be the car," she said, smiling at him. "And in this outfit, a girl has to be careful."

"Sounds like I was right about you ruining my good reputation, huh?"

"Or I'm making your reputation, depending on how you look at it," she said, getting up just enough to move into a handstand. "Look at it this way, you actually managed to get me out on a date."

"Pfft. Like anyone's gonna believe that."

"We'll just have to do it again then, won't we?" She rolled from the hand stand, curling and coming up on her feet.

"You do that, someone might accuse you of having enjoyed it," he grinned broadly.

"Guilty as charged then, I guess," she said with a shrug before handspringing backwards to land on her feet again.

"Not going soft on me there, are you?"

"I never go soft," she said, handspringing backwards again. "But I don't lie without good reason either." She grinned, "So does that improve your reputation?"

"Gonna be honest here, you're probably getting in on the ground floor of this shindig."

"Well, we'll just have to see how far the elevator goes up, won't we?" She said, sinking to the floor and rearranging into splits.

"You know, I wasn't gonna say anything because we both know this isn't gonna earn me any points here, but sweet baby Jesus are you bendy."

"Thank you. It pays to keep in practice."

"So I'm not gonna get slapped for that one, or are you saving it up?"

"At my age, I consider it a compliment," she said, supporting herself on her hands as she readjusted her legs and went back up into a handstand. "And if you say something slap worthy, I'll slap you. You won't have to worry about me saving it up."

"So, myself excepted, you keeping these yahoos in line okay?"

"Summer's normally pretty quiet," she said, doing splits while still in her handstand. "The most complicated things I usually have to do are a lengthy security report, which was taken care of, and make sure the summer maintenance and building projects don't inadvertently compromise the security system."

"Kinda feel sorry for the kids that are staying over, personally. I know what it was like to be a weird kid."

"Yeah, it's hard on them." She lowered one foot to the floor, "But it will all be forgotten when everyone else gets here for the start of school. I was in and out so much during my time here and then I was out for good for a while, so I can't really talk about summers at school."

"Tends to be the kids who have uncontrollable powers, or physical mutations, or really bad situations at home. It's not always a good mix."

"Yeah, I can't say I had it especially bad on any of those fronts, at least not at first. Most of them will eventually adjust and we're here to help the ones who don't." She brought herself around, holding her body and one leg parallel to the floor while she balanced on one foot.

"Yeah, I'm not saying it doesn't get better. Just the first summer or so is really rough on 'em."

"That's something of an academic point though, isn't it? Or just a truism? Not to belittle there suffering." She rolled forward, somersaulting in his general direction.

"Kinda makes me want to help them out though, you know?"

"Of course, we can't be 'cool' to them anymore."

"Of course not. We're all old and stuff," she said, putting on a mock voice. "But wanting to help them is why we're here."