It was surprisingly easy to focus on exercising, even when someone else was in the gym. Noel was not some stranger, and she never gave him reason to feel uncomfortable or self-conscious around her. He started with some cardio, taking time on one of the exercise bikes. He had to work up an appetite for gelato after all.

Once he was starting to build up a sweat, Nate moved onto the leg press, followed by weights. Picking up a workout habit in prison meant Nate had no personal trainer to work out a regimen for him. When there was time to exercise, there was no order to what he would do. Whatever sounded good at the time was where he would go next.

When it came time to work toward the end of his session, Nate took advantage of his favorite piece of equipment Devon had installed. The salmon ladder was not a common piece of gear, but it was a great challenge, and one Nate would not have been able to do before he bulked up during his time away.

Nate could feel his arms burning when Noel came closer, already cleaning herself off. ”Oh, is it gelato time?” he asked, with the strain in his voice apparent as a product of his activity. Letting go of the metal bar keeping him off the ground, Nate dropped to the ground, landing on his sneaker-clad feet with a thud.

Grabbing a towel of his own, Nate wiped sweat from his brow. ”So, you’re… you know, aloud to leave, right?” It had not occurred to him earlier, but the notion that Devon would keep Noel on a temporary house arrest was believable if they were helping her legally. The last thing Nate needed was to get them both in trouble for the sake of Italian desserts.

Whatever he was doing there... She wanted one.

"I don't think I can actually do a pull up." She hadn't tested it. Now, suddenly she was feeling competitive and wanted to despite knowing that she would only embarrass herself.

But on the other hand... gelato. The internal struggle was real.

"I am allowed to leave provided that I am accompanied by someone from the building." Devon may have meant residents. Or members of his club. Whatever the exact list, Noel was sure Nate was on it. The guardian was probably more for everyday needs and the courts had probably not accounted for an incompetent person who could occasionally re-competentate... re-competent? Recover her mental faculties. Yeah. Even the English language hadn't accounted for that one.

"You will be responsible for me as far as mayhem are murder are concerned." Noel eyed Nate's sneakers and post-workout twitching arms. "Pretty sure you're up for it." She was tired, but more importantly, Noel also was not planning to do any mayhem or murder.

"You uh-" She coughed, a mite embarrassed again. "You'll also have to pay."

Noel showed an interest in the salmon ladder, which was unsurprising; she was never one to shy away from a challenge. She seemed thinner than he remembered, but he realized her memory might not have been the only thing she was working to rebuild. ”It takes forever to get right. I’m pretty sure the first time I tried it, I almost wrecked my ankle falling from it.” He was sure, given time, Noel would be up and down that ladder faster than he could, (which would do wonders to motivate him anyway.)

To ease Nate’s concerns, Noel clarified that as long as she had some kind of accompaniment, she was allowed to leave the Headquarters. It was worth a sigh of relief, but one that he wanted to rescind when she reminded him that he would be responsible for any of the memorymancer’s mischief. He did not genuinely believe Noel was going to blow her chance on his watch, but it was totally reasonable that she might give him a hard time. ”Yeah, keep the mayhem minimal.” He would not tread the topic of murder, hoping to just be an optimist.

It was not surprising that gelato would be on Nate, considering his friend was recently without memory and under arrest. He doubted Noel was brought to Haven with a small nest egg to take advantage of; she would likely not even remember bank account numbers. ”I’ve got you covered, Noel. Come on, our old place isn’t actually far from here.”

They had a place. It was nice to have a friend again.

Nate led them out of the gym and out of the building, waving to the guard in the lobby as he passed. It was still bizarre that he found himself working in two different places where he was friendly with security with no ulterior motive.

The evening was cool, with the real summer temperatures still on the horizon. The sun was setting, but there was still time to get gelato before the shop closed. They were lucky to live in a city that understood the benefits of staying open late.

Looking back at Noel, it was time to put talk of his life on hold to get reacquainted with whatever Noel might have picked up since her memory wipe. ”So have you met anyone interesting since you’ve been back? I mean, Nat and Devon, clearly, but anyone else? New friends I should feel jealous of?”

Almost wrecked his ankle? Noel tried to file that information away for when she inevitably came back and tried it herself. She wished that she'd brought a marker to write herself a note later, but Noel wasn't in the habit of erasing memories these days. She was actually getting to build on some of her previous days.

Hearing him say "our old place" made her practically giddy. This was more than building on a day's worth of information. This was building on a friendship.

The guy at the door got an extra mischievous smile from Noel. She didn't know his name and Nate only waved, but Noel was leaving the premises. She felt a small surge of victory as soon as she'd crossed the threshold. It wasn't like they were forcing her to stay, just obligating her. She really didn't want to mess this chance up, but at the same time it was a novel experience to be in one place for so long without really doing anything.

> "New friends I should feel jealous of?”

"I haven't been here all that long, but there's a kid named Max who's got chutzpah. He let me revisit his private school tutelage so now I can extemporaneously flex his vocabulary." Noel's head was on a swivel. The city was just the same as always, but she could almost appreciate the honks and exhaust as part of the tapestry she was missing while living the interior life some floors up from the street.

"The security guys are all polite, apparently I've worked a job with one of them in the past so it's some new, some new-to-me." She shrugged and had to up her pace to keep her jelly legs moving. Hopefully it wasn't too far. She told herself this was a nice cooldown so her muscles wouldn't seize up.

Nate’s comment about Noel’s friendships was certainly in jest; as much as he appreciated the exclusivity of being a friend to Noel, he wanted her to succeed in rebuilding a new life for herself. Creating some connections and attachments could go a long way toward normalcy, even if the woman was never skilled at committing to people.

There was a “kid” named Max, and the phrase itself made Nate feel old. He went to prison in his twenties, but he was years past thirty now. Students he used to teach were adults, and he was looking at younger twenty-somethings like they were “kids.” Max probably fell into that camp, but he was old enough for Noel to be impressed with. He also granted her access to a wide, pretentious swath of the English language, which did let Nate avoid the need for a translator, so he could not have been all bad. ”Sounds like an exemplary young man you encountered there.”

It made sense that some of the people in security knew Noel in the past, since that was one of the more legitimate, legal jobs in her history, whether she remembered it or not. Her powers put her in the unique position of having to meet the same people more than once. Hell, had he said nothing, she probably would have seen him as nothing more than a stranger making the gym less empty. ”At least things are probably easier with some friendly faces around. I’m still getting used to security smiling at me.” Devon was a good man, but no fool; Nate was sure the guards were aware of the ex-thief’s background, just in case he was playing some long-con. If they were aware, it did not shade the degree of respect and pleasantness they exhibited with him.

”So after being cooped up, how is it getting some fresh—well, the New York equivalent of fresh air?” Nate asked as he held open the door to the gelato shop, allowing Noel to lead them in.

"I don't think I've met anyone who isn't exemplary here. Hadden seems to have discerning taste." Except for the blatant opulence. There was no excusing that.

Hadden's discernment in who to invite to live in his palatial domain begged the question... why'd he take a chance on her? She was a lost cause when she'd been in the hospital. Worse, she'd been a hazard to herself and others. She wasn't now. She wasn't always, but there would always be that risk.

"I can't imagine anyone not smiling at you." Noel rolled her eyes. "You apply the charm and people combust." If he didn't see it, he was willfully ignorant because she could see it through his eyes.

Of course, seeing things through his eyes meant she wasn't watching where they were going. She managed to walk right past the gelato place, but Nate's slightly distant voice tipped her off. Ah. Oops. Noel blinked away the memory she'd been chasing and adjusted course with no apology.

"I need to work on my tan." She quipped. Really, she needed to work on a lot of things. She had a list on a post-it back in the apartment, actually. "Make Friends" was on that list. Already today was a step forward. "But really, I thought I was going to never see the sun again. I'll take any chance I can get." And any gelato. Stepping into the shop was a weird double whammy of deja vu. The smell of refrigerator exhaust and something intangibly sweet triggered the memories from Nate and tutoring Panu both.

"Mango, I think." Or. No. That was what Nate liked. Noel breathed a laugh. "Can I have a sample?" The girl behind the counter was more than happy to oblige. In the end she chose Birthday Cake gelato with chocolate chips. It was almost intolerably sweet which made it perfect.

Noel gave Nate a lot of credit, but he was not a humble enough to deny it. Nate lived a life of “applying the charm” for so long, he knew it was something he was good at. Being at Haven was something different though. ”Sure, but with security, they were usually smiling at some other man with some other name. People smile at me now. I usually only get that from memory-tasting swordswomen.”

For a moment, Noel seemed in her own little world, possibly taking a peek into one of his memories. Nate cleared his throat, holding open the door to the gelato shop his friend had walked by. She caught on and turned back to join him.

If Nate was confined to a single building, he would quickly fall prey to cabin fever. If an ankle tracker was realistic for a mutant who could melt out of such an accessory, it could have been his fate. He empathized with Noel’s need to get some time away. ”Next field trip, we go to the beach then.”

They made their way to the counter, and Noel ordered first, asking for mango, but changing her mind. Nate did not realize right away why she stopped before it hit him; he ordered mango the first time they visited the gelato shop. The thought made him smile, and he could not help but order the old classic again.

Taking seats outside the shop as the sun started dipping past the outline of buildings. Nate took a spoonful of the frozen treat and savored the sweet tangy taste on his tongue. ”I do have to work tonight, so maybe we hold off on any celebratory food fights.” Truthfully, he was still in workout clothes, so he could live with the mess, but he was not going to point that out to Noel.