Aero Driver grabbed whatever snacks he could.

He promised Emerald he'd hang out with her today so he was bringing snacks in case the two got hungry. She forgot exactly which ones Em liked so they grabbed one of everything. Aero got back to their room and she walked inside. After a few steps, however, she tripped and fell onto the floor. They dropped everything they had in his arms and hissed at the pain. Emerald and Peridot ran over to him.

"Are you okay Aero?" Peridot asked in concern.

Aero grunted. "I'm- I'm fine."

Emerald helped him up while PG grabbed the bagged snacks. Emerald looked at the scrape, which Aero didn't even realize was there. Dark grayish-green blood seeped through the surface, standing out against his white fur. The teal monkey looked at Peridot with worry. She held her hands out, open, before pulling them closer to her chest as her hands closed into fists. Emerald then laid her left hand out wide open and tapped the surface with all her fingers on her right hand except her index finger.

"Okay. While I get Diamond, stay with him." Peridot instructed.

Emerald nodded before PG got up and ran out the room. She focused her attention back onto them. She tried to pull one of his leg warmers down but he forced it to stay where it was. Em jerked back with wide open eyes. Her eyes went between his leg warmer and his face. He realized what they just did and pulled their hands away.

"...Sorry. I- I get easily cold if they're off." Aero lied. "I wish to keep them on, if that's okay."

She nodded. She pulled the front part down slightly to see how far the scrape went. Thankfully what she saw before was the most damage he endured. Same with the other leg once she checked that one as well. Emerald was glad he wasn't severely injured. Aero was glad as well, though for different reasons.

In all honesty, he wasn't too sure if he could celebrate just yet.

Diamond and Peridot came into the room. Diamond went in front of Aero and checked their knee. She looked at Emerald.

"Was he hurt anywhere else?" Diamond asked.

Emerald shook her head.

"Good. This won't take too long, just gotta clean it up, treat it, and bandage it up."

Aero raised his hands up. "It's- It's not that bad though!"

She glared. "If it doesn't get treated, it will get bloody bad! So stay still and let me get to it."

He quietly gulped. "Ye-Yes ma'am."

Diamond pulled his leg warmer down only slightly. He forced himself to stay still and not do anything. He watched her as his heart pounded harder and louder. She grabbed a wet wipe and cleaned the blood off. If Aero didn't have fur, his goosebumps would be viewable from how wet and chilly the wipe felt against his knee. She glanced at him for a moment and he quickly gave her a smile. After that, Diamond treated it and bandaged it up without much issue.

She stood up. "There, not that much trouble. Keep it on until tomorrow morning, it'll need to air out for an hour or two before I check it again."

"Okay, I will." He said.

Diamond got up and left the room. Peridot soon followed, presumably to see what she was up to prior to this. Aero released a breath of relief that he didn't realize he was holding. While their heart still pounded like crazy, it felt like they were free for the moment. Emerald grabbed her arm and tugged Aero towards the TV.

"Whoa, slow down!" He chuckled.


Magma made his way to the training room.

He needed to keep himself sharp and he was incredibly pissed. Another trip just meant that he got to take his anger out on something that wasn't his family, even if he already trained for the day. The only thing he was hoping for was that Hermo didn't show up and start messing with him because that was the last thing he wanted right now. Magma shook his head; he shouldn't jinx something like that.

When he got to the room, the doors whooshed open. Nobody was inside at the moment, which he was grateful for. He took a step inside.

Unfortunately, that was when they thought it was the best time to show up.

"Hey, Maggie!"

Lovely.

Magma quickly moved to the spot he was going for. Before the doors could close completely, Dactyle stopped it and walked in with a smile.

"Hej, ignorerar inte mig!" They said, annoyed.

He groaned, he hated it whenever they started speaking a language that wasn't English or Japanese. At times, he swore they were doing it just to piss them off. Magma didn't look at them, he simply went to a punching bag and started hitting it.

"Do you want something?" He questioned. "I swear, if you're just here to annoy me…"

They dramatically gasped. "Why would you assume that I, deine Geschwister, would be here purely to irritate you?"

He stopped punching and looked at them. "Uh, because you take joy in seeing me mad."

"Oh, pololei!"

"Like right now." He growled before he continued hitting the punching bag. "Why can't you just speak clear English or Japanese? That would make it easier for everyone here!"

"Men varför? So macht es mehr Spaß!" They exclaimed.

Magma's hand swung past the punching bag and aimed for Dactyle instead. He grabbed their neck and held them up against the wall. His grip on their neck was pretty firm.

"I swear if you don't motherfucking speak in a way I understand you for one damn minute-"

「もっと激しく窒息させて!」 Hermo moaned.

At that moment, Magma dropped them and all of his anger vanished. The second they hit the ground, they put their hands over their mouth, just realizing what they just said. Their face turned red like a rose. He wouldn't doubt his own was turning red with how much heat was spreading across his upper body.

The two stared at each other in the eyes for several, uncomfortably long seconds. Eventually he helped them up and once they were on their feet, he immediately retracted his hands. Hermodactyloides looked away, scratching the back of their neck.

"...Let's pretend that never happened," they said.

He nodded. "Agreed."

Dactyle hurried out of the room, not looking back at him even once. Magma stared at the punching bag. He didn't feel like punching it anymore; he sighed. He swore he had to get his anger under control. Magma seriously could've hurt them and the last thing he wanted was to hurt the people he loved.

That and he wanted to avoid more awkward situations like this.


Every time Aero came to view, Diamond watched them.

She acted a little strange earlier when Diamond was patching them up. She was sweating, his chest palpitated, and they had the fakest yet nervous smile Dia had ever seen. All of that because she pulled his leg warmer down. It could be he was worrying she might think it was worse than what it was and she was overthinking it, but something was telling her there was something deeper and she had to find out what it was.

Asking him directly wouldn't be of much use. He would deny it over and over again, not letting a single word of anything wrong slip out. Aerodynamic was always like that, never wanting to be a bother to anyone, he was like an open book with pages ripped out and hidden to her. She just had to find said ripped out pages to figure out the rest of him. Dia would have to figure out how to find them.

One way would be spending time with Aero, however there was a high probability that he'd have his guards up high.

Dia's eyes sharpened as she saw Aero take his jacket off. He put it around Emerald's shivering shoulders. She knew he took his jacket off at times, like when he went to sleep, but that was rare for him to do. Emerald's legs still shivered, but she smiled gratefully. She signed a thank you and how she'll return it later.

"Don't worry about it, uh, keep it for as long as you need it!" Aero said.

She nodded before walking away. Dia noticed how he didn't take his leg warmers off to help her out. It made her realize Aero never had them off unless he washed himself or he had something to wear over his legs. When Aero was about to turn around, Diamond looked at her book and made it look like she was reading. They walked up to her and sat down next to her. They looked over her shoulder to have a peek.

"Whacha reading?" He asked.

She didn't look away. "Oh, it's a psychology book. You wouldn't be too interested in it."

"...Is it good?"

Diamond had a double take. She stared at her for a few minutes.

"You're interested? There's no way you're genuinely interested in this. If you are then you're either replaced by a clone or-"

"No, no!" She waved their hands. "I mean, I'm not, psychology bores me, but… I know we don't spend a lot of time together, so…"

"Basically you wish to deepen our sibling bond as it's not that strong in comparison to our other respective sibling bonds." Diamond stated.

He nodded quickly. It was perfect for Dia, she could understand him more and see what was going on with their legs and they would spend time together. It was a perfect 'kill two birds with one stone' situation, as one would say. She closed her book and stood up.

"Very well. What do you want to do then, Aerodynamic?"

"Oh, uh, we could do some flying." He suggested. "I- I mean, that's probably boring for you, but-"

"No, no, we can do that." Dia interrupted. "I asked what you wished to do, after all, so if you want to do that then it's okay."

Aero opened his mouth to speak, however they struggled to get the words out. Instead, they grabbed her hand and ran off.

He seemed quite excited about flying.


Magma took a deep breath before he knocked on Antauri's door.

Whenever he was about to enter a room or hallway, he made sure Hermodactyloides wasn't there first. He wanted to avoid them as much as he could in order to keep what happened before from happening again. Thankfully, they were elsewhere and he didn't have to deal with them whatsoever for the time being.

"You may come in," Antauri answered.

The doors whooshed open and Magma walked in. Antauri and Nova were meditating together, hopefully he wasn't interrupting them.

"Uh, Dad Antauri, you remember offering me meditation lessons and all that junk?"

Antauri opened one of their eyes and looked at him.

"I take it that you're finally willing to try it out?" He questioned.

"...Yeah." Magma hesitated to answer. "Just to, y'know, get it out the way."

Nova sighed and opened her eyes. She looked at him.

"Magma, it's okay to say if you need help." She told him. "I didn't have the best hold of my anger issues either and I was scared of hurting someone I care about because of it. Thanks to your father here, I got better at it."

"Wait, you having anger issues?"

Nova chuckled. "We're a lot more alike than you think, honey."

"There's a reason why I asked Gibson if you were our kid instead of mine and Sprx's." They added with a smirk on his face.

Magma sat close to both of them and sighed, not looking at either of his parents. He scratched the back of his neck.

"I… Almost hurt Hermo and I'm scared of getting that close to doing so again. With anyone. So I'd… appreciate the help." He admitted.

"I'm glad you're coming to us with this," Nova started, "but if we find out that 'almost' was a 'definitely' and you didn't tell us the whole truth, I'll-"

"They weren't hurt! You can ask them yourself if you don't believe me!"

"I'm messing with you, Magma." Nova laughed.

Magma released a breath he didn't know he held in. He crossed his legs then took a deep breath; he looked at them both.

"So how do we start?" He asked.

In the meantime, Dactyle sat alone with lunch in front of them.

They rubbed their neck, thinking about earlier. It wasn't hurting by any means, but Dactyle wasn't too sure how to feel about it. It shouldn't be so complicated to know, yet for them it was. On one hand, it was exhilarating and it strangely felt good. On the other hand, that was their brother doing it. It wasn't like they could be turned on by that.

They planted their face right into their food and groaned. Feelings and all of that were so annoying to figure out.

"Hey Kid, somethin' the matter?"

Dactyle looked up to see Sprx sit across the table. He had one of his eyebrows raised up. They sighed before putting their face onto their palm. They moved their utensil in a circle.

"How do you know you're… into something, Papa Sprx?" Hermo asked, not looking him in the eyes.

"Depends on what you mean."

"Kinks, I guess."

If Sprx's eyebrow could raise higher, it did that quickly.

"Do-Don't look at me like that! It suddenly happened in the moment, nothing intentional!"

Sprx couldn't help but smile and chuckle. "I don't know about everyone else, but for me it's usually either unplanned or tryin' it out, whether you feel like you're gonna be into it or not. If it makes you feel good, there ya go."

They hummed in an interested manner.

"Though I do wanna know what happened." Sprx leaned in.

Hermo started thinking about it again and looked away as the blood ran to their face. Whether they realized it or not, they pulled their only clothing piece up to hide their neck, even if it was see-through. Sprx put two and two together and moved back.

"I'm guessing Magma had something to do with it?" He asked.

Their eyes widened and their blush deepened.

"What?! I- …Yeah, he was accidentally choking me and I was telling him to do it harder." They quietly answered.

"Huh," he blinked a couple times. "Okay, I understand your dilemma."

"It's weird, ne?" Dactyle responded.

Sprx shrugged. "With everything I've seen in my lifetime, and being with Chiro since he was a young teen, not really the weirdest thing. Just a little unexpected."

They simply nodded. In all honesty, they kinda forgot that was the case. It wasn't that none of the kids didn't know, quite the contrary, it was just hard to think of Chiro being anything but how he currently was.

"Though if you two start doin' stuff together, just be careful." Sprx added.

Dactyle nearly choked on their food. "Vad?! Nein, nein, nothing like that!"

Sprx laughed at how they freaked out. "But ya know we're here for you and your siblings. If you ever need help with anything, you know where to look."

They got up and hugged Sprx. "Thanks, Papa Sprx."

Sprx hugged them back. Dactyle saw that Magma was coming closer to the room.

"However I think I'll be avoiding Maggie for a while!"

They quickly grabbed their food and ran off.

Sprx only smiled and shook his head.


Diamond stood beside Aero Driver as he piloted.

They had a huge smile on his face. So sweet and so genuine, something she hardly saw with Aero. Flying was one of those things that made him feel truly happy. The pieces were coming together, slowly but surely. Her eyes glanced down towards the leg warmers. Their fur was puffier due to the heat forming more and more around there. It didn't even bother them, as if he needed them on.

She noticed it before, but Diamond didn't say anything about it. If anything, she figured it was best to wait until Aero wasn't piloting anymore. She looked forward again.

Diamond understood why he liked flying as much as he did though. It allowed him freedom to do whatever he wanted without too many limits. While she picked it up from Sprx, it was somehow something they could make his own. It was also a time where Aero Driver could think and truly be alone without anyone or anything to interrupt them. She could understand that feeling of wanting to be alone with a high chance of no interruptions.

In a way, she was envious of her, considering Diamond herself never had something like that for when she needed to get away. The most Diamond had was her books and research, nothing to this extent. She wanted to join Aero on his future escapisms, however her possibly being there with him could ruin any privacy time he could get so she shot herself down on asking him. She had to find something that was perfect for her.

Besides, that wasn't what she was here for.

Albeit before she knew it, Aero landed and they were back inside the Super Robot. Aero allowed her to leave first and she accepted his silent offer. They came out right after her, though they tripped. Diamond caught him before he could hit the floor.

"Are you okay, Aerodynamic?" She asked.

"Ye-Yeah, I'm fine."

Aero tried to make sure their footing was good. When they realized something, he bent down; he started adjusting the leg warmers. Diamond bent down and put her hands on hers.

"Take them off. They deserve to breathe some after that flight."

Aero tried to get her hands off. "They- They can do that while I- while I wash up."

"Sooner would be better than later." She firmly stated.

In the midst of it all, one slipped off her leg. He scrambled and fumbled trying to get it back on, though it was already too late. Diamond saw the very reason why he tried to keep them on at all times. Everything fell into place and she could read him completely now.

Scars ran across his leg, though from what she could see it was mostly in the back. She grabbed his leg and lifted it off the ground, turning it every way to see every part of it. All of them seemed like they were from a saw blade, which gave her a clear idea of how it happened. Aero breathed heavily and he trembled. Diamond looked up at him and she saw tears going down his deeper colored face.

"P-Please," Aero hiccupped, "please don't tell anyone about those. I- I can explain-"

"You don't think we care enough." Diamond started. "While we notice you, know that you're here, you feel like we don't care about you enough where you could hurt yourself and we won't notice. You're hurting more than we realize… More than I realize, and I'm sorry I didn't notice it before."

She laid his leg down before pulling him into a hug. Aero held onto her tightly.

"...You- You really know how to- how to read people, huh?" They sniffed. "I guess- I guess that's why you're the more attentive one out of- out of everybody."

"I've never been able to fully read you until now." She pulled away and wiped away his tears. "However, I do want you to come to me at least once every day now. I'm helping you through this, Aerodynamic."

"So you won't tell anyone?"

"I won't promise that. We care about you and we have to know what's going on."

Aero looked away but she pulled her back into a hug.

No matter what, she would do what she could.


Everyone gathered at the table.

Hermodactyloids and Magma sat far away from each other, not even eyeing one another. Aside from that, everyone sat in their usual spots. Soma and Marino kept their eyes on everyone, making sure there were no fights breaking out among the group. Diamond noticed Hermo and Magma's behaviors being slightly off, though she kept that mystery for another time.

Gibson cleared his throat. "So how was everyone's day?"

"Fine."

"Całkowicie normalne."

Hermo and Magma spoke at the same time. Their faces blushed a deeper color of their respective furs. Jasper snorted and snickered. Everyone else either answered 'fine' or 'pretty good'.

"It was quite interesting, to say the least." Diamond responded.

"You guys wanna talk about your day?" Chiro asked with a smile.

"Nope!" Magma and Hermo said in unison.

"...Okay, thought I'd ask."