Normally, Natsu was the very first pick for Alzack and Bisca to have look after Asuka when they needed some 'alone' time.
Seeing as he wasn't here, Gildarts had found himself practically forced to keep the little gunslinger entertained alongside Gray.
Gildarts decided to stay at the guild for longer than a few days this go around, deciding to take it easy with the missions after the Alvarez War.
He never expected to have the responsibility of childcare thrust upon him.
Gildarts may be a father, but his experience when it came to dealing with children that weren't his own was not as vast as it should be.
Even then, his daughter was a full grown woman.
Thankfully, Gray of all people had somehow been roped into it.
Turns out when he didn't have Juvia or the rest of Team Natsu around, Gray tended to get bored.
That led to him being at the wrong place at the wrong time, which in turn led to him being caught in the crossfire of a task he couldn't really refuse.
Things weren't all bad, him and Gray had a decent handle on things, and both of them weren't afraid to admit that spending time with a little girl that they loved silly could prove to be a pleasant experience.
While Asuka hummed happily to herself, entranced in a state of unbound innocent creativity, a pack of crayons serving as her brush and a few blank pages of paper, her canvas, Gray and Gildarts ended up having to address the elephant in the room.
Catching up only took so long, and they could only prolong the conversation for so long by sitting in front of the bar, using drinks as an excuse to stay quiet.
"How long had he been gone?" Gildarts prompted with a whisper, careful not to alert the child positioned on a stool between them.
While Gildarts stared at his own reflection in the mug of booze in front of him, Gray leaned against bar and watched Asuka doodle with a fond yet slim smile.
Said smile soured upon hearing the question.
Exhaling, he pushed himself up into a rigid sitting posture and replied bitterly,
"About a month. Me and Juvia ran into him at the bar a few days ago."
"Where is he now?"
"Juvia convinced him to take a job with her. I didn't tell her what was going on with him, she sort figured it out herself and refused to drop the issue. She chased him down and got more out of him than I ever could."
Scratching his beard, Gildarts shook his head in defeat, "God, I could have done something."
"We all could have done something Gildarts." Gray insisted tersely.
"I was the one person he looked up to. The signs were right in front of me, the entire time I could see he was in pain, and I did nothing." Gildarts retorted, jaw clenching as rugged features twitched with pained remembrance.
Gray disagreed, "If anyone deserves the blame, it's the guy he sparred with nonstop for years."
At the confused glance Gildarts provided, he reluctantly elaborated, putting his thoughts into verbal form, with all self delusions rescinded.
Gray exhaled through his nose,
"We pushed each other to new levels of power. It was an unspoken agreement I guess, that we would never stop making each other stronger, we would never stop constantly testing ourselves, never content with where we stood."
Gildarts swiveled in his stool, the metal joints squeaking like a pack of startled mice as he turned to face him. "Why?"
"What?"
"I mean what was the goal of all that?" he clarified with muted curiosity.
"We needed to protect the guild. We had other reasons, things to prove to ourselves, but protecting our family always came first."
Gray stifled a burp into a closed fist, taking a swig of beer before sighing, "As the years went on, Gajeel joined our little pact, then Sting and Rogue too. We agreed to never stop pouring our everything into our training."
Gildarts' torso shook in a chuckle, "Well I'll be, that's where that mentality came from."
It was Gray's turn to send him an odd look. Gildarts sniffed and titled his head to the side, glancing nowhere in particular as he reached down deep and pulled out sacred memories.
Long harbored confusion suddenly dissipated, leaving Gildarts with bittersweet relief as he turned to the younger man,
"Hey Gray, I ever tell you about me and Natsu's fight at Tenrou?"
Gildarts couldn't help but wince as he sent Natsu flying through the rocky cave wall for what felt like the dozenth time.
The busy bouldered clearing shuddered at the impact as yet another section of its rocky outcropping collapsed in on itself.
As shattered boulder fragments scattered and puffy dust rose, Gildarts frowned tightly, displeased with the direction the fight had found itself winding down.
Natsu was supposed to surrender.
He was supposed to give up the moment he showed the dragon slayer a fraction of his true power.
But he didn't.
Natsu didn't so much as hesitate to throw himself back at an opponent far, far superior.
No matter how many times Gildarts told Natsu to stand down, warned him of the consequences of attacking, and punished his attempts at continuing with bone rattling blows, he didn't stop coming.
Gildarts was at first impressed with Natsu's tenacity, in fact he had expected Natsu to at least get up and try to attack.
He had known that Natsu didn't just give up, he had lost count of how many times he had been challenged by him as a kid, how many times Natsu got back up after getting knocked down.
As humiliating as it was for Natsu, to get trounced in front of all of his peers, it never dissuaded him from trying again the next time Gildarts stopped by.
He had watched as a thirteen year old Natsu stepped up to fight a Gorian, the most powerful Vulcan he had ever come across, to save Lisanna, and won.
It didn't matter how many times Natsu had been stomped, it didn't matter how outclassed he had been, Natsu continued to stand back up and attack without fear.
And when all was said and done, Natsu was bruised and beaten, ribs cracked, an arm broken, but the Gorian lay defeated in a scorching heap, and Lisanna had been rescued safe and sound.
Natsu had fought a hopeless battle and came out on top.
Gildarts admired that, truly.
In all his years of living, out of all the people he had the pleasure of meeting, he had never seen such raw spirit.
However, there was a thing as too much spirit.
Because Natsu wasn't facing an overgrown Vulcan, he was facing the mightiest mage in Fairy Tail.
A plucky attitude and fearlessness wasn't going to carry him to victory.
Watching as the white of Natsu's scarf fluttered in the air, curling and flowing like a flapping flag, Gildart's stomach turned at the smears of soaked scarlet that stained the garment.
Now, having been forced off its owner by the most recent backhand, it settled on the ground, limp.
Happy, having been told by Natsu to go find Lisanna, was not here to retrieve it.
It didn't take long for the still smoldering bundle of rubble to burst by ballooning shockwaves of steam, dirt unable to be kicked into the air by the terse gusts of wind.
Finally, along came a battered and bruised Natsu, far more damaged than his surroundings, who slowly staggered back towards Gildarts.
The dragon slayer would waver and wobble on overexerted knees every so often, but remained upright nonetheless.
Natsu's bare chest now heaved, struggling mightily to simply inhale oxygen.
"This has gone far enough." Gildarts finally spoke, tone biting.
Gildarts shook his head in disgust, "I'm done humoring you! You're just being a dumbass at this point!"
"Dammit Natsu, why? Why couldn't you just surrender?!" he demanded.
Gesturing to their surroundings apprehensively, Gildarts seethed, composure finally having exited the pitiful scene, "Look around you, look at you!"
"All of this is because you refused to accept fear. I could see it in your eyes, I watched you deny it." Gildarts stated, "Fear isn't evil Natsu, it keeps us humble, it allows us to know our own weakness and become stronger because of it!"
He demanded, "Why can't you just accept that you're at your limit!?"
While Gildarts' normally firm composure had left, something in Natsu had finally arrived, straightening his posture and filling his chest with boiling magma.
"Do you really think I'm not scared?" his voice, as strangled with pain as it may be, came calm and stern.
Gildarts frowned tightly, watching as Natsu sloppily pulled his scarf back on and wiped the cut above his eyebrow.
Natsu pressed a palm to his bloodied shoulder, applying cauterizing heat to the grievous wound.
He spoke strong through grimaces and groans, "Is that your lesson? Huh?! That when the going gets tough you should just throw up your hands and say 'welp, I tried'?"
"No you imbecile," Gildarts scoffed, almost sneering, "If you would actually listen to reason, for once, you would see that it takes a big man to swallow his pride and stand down, to re-sheath his blades! Fear isn't evil, Natsu."
"We all need fear to keep us humble-"
"Humble? Or complacent?!" Natsu cut him off with a bark.
Natsu gingerly rotated his shoulder in its socket, teeth chittering at the horrid sensation he forced himself to push through.
"I've had my own weakness thrown in my face every goddamn day! I know where I come up short, cause I have the guild to rub it in my face each and every time I walk through those doors!" came his fierce growl.
Patience already worn thin, Gildarts folded his arms like a disappointed parent, hiding the sympathy that bloomed within with a crest of a brow.
Even he could tell these sentiments where something Natsu had been dying to let loose.
Natsu's audacious magical energy began to swell with alarming speed, leaping and bounding upwards faster and faster the longer it climbed.
"Here's what you ain't understanding! Fears we don't face become our limits!" Natsu announced, feeling that intoxicating bubbling in his stomach fuel the zealous call for battle.
"It don't matter if I lose, it matters if I try!"
"Even if it means killing yourself!?" Gildarts challenged snippily, reluctantly able to see his point.
"If I crack-" Natsu' throat tore as he coughed out, "-t-then I harden again."
Gildarts couldn't help but pry, "Why?"
"Does S-class mean this much to you? Why do you want it so bad? What about it is so goddamn important that it's worth throwing your body away!?"
Natsu, whose voice remained low despite the ferocity it communicated with, put it bluntly, "I don't give a shit about S-class."
"I just got Lisanna back, I'm not losing her again." he began, having forgotten about the pain that picked at his nervous system like the strings of a guitar.
"I gotta protect them, the guild, I have to keep them safe! I chose them in Edolas!"
"And how do you think they will react once they find out what this has done to you?" Gildarts retorted.
Natsu seethed, lips pulling back, "It's my guild! My family! My call on how I protect them!"
The pungent image of Gildarts, standing obscured behind a curtain of mystic magical power, eyes glowing and figure wafting like a monster burned behind Natsu's retinas, sending shivers down his spine and growls into his throat.
As much as it frightened him, as much as it would rob him of necessary sleep for years to come, it turned the raging fire in his belly into the core of a novae.
"I ain't failing my Wendy again!" Natsu's entire body tensed and quaked,
"I made a promise to be her protector, to be the big brother that would always keep her safe, that I would always be there to defend her from anyone that would dare touch her!"
The blood encrusted brutes of his feet steamed as their surroundings were melted into molten ooze.
"I gotta be the Dad I promised Lisanna I would be, I gotta be the one to protect the wife and son! Because of them, I gotta be strong! That means I gotta give more!" Natsu howled.
Fire came, lighting the day sky and outshining the sun's ray, to cloak Natsu in its ferocious warmth.
From the defiant purgatory came a humongous figure, born from the flaring swathes of Natsu's burning ambience.
An ethereal avatar took the shape of looming Dragon, expansive wings spread and at the ready.
For a moment, Gildarts believed that he was seeing him, the monstrosity that had taken his arm.
But upon feeling the searing winds upon his face, he came to a realization that it was something possibly just as terrifying.
Gildarts couldn't help but give a breathless chuckle, and grin ear from ear in disbelief.
The impetuous spirit of the Fire Dragon King cast a shadow upon reality itself as he stood supportively behind his son, flickering in and out of existence.
"So let's get one thing clear Gildarts!" Natsu barked as his father's spirit faded into wisps, "You're the strong, I get it!"
Before charging, Natsu boomed so that the whole island could hear it,
"But not even you get to decide what my limits are!"
"Yeah, that sounds like him." Gray agreed, an almost proud smirk tickling his lips as he engaged in a ferocious match of Tic-Tac-Toe with Asuka,
"Flamebrain doesn't really do the whole 'surrender' thing."
Having fully turned around in his seat, Gildarts leaned his back against the counter and chuckled softly, "Yeah, I really misjudged him."
"Before he finished throwing the punch, I surrendered. Told him he had given me a lot to think about. Safe to say, he wasn't happy all the wind had been taken out from under his sails."
"We took an hour to rest, Lisanna and Happy came by to tend to his wounds, and after that he took off." Gildarts finished the story with a huff, as if just recalling it was an exercise.
Gray came to a realization, muttering to himself in bemusement, "So that's why he looked as if he had been thrown through a mountain."
"From what I heard, Natsu spent the rest of the time at the island giving it 110%." Gray shared, glancing nowhere in particular,
"According to Gramps, he steamrolled through a guy named Zancrow with almost no trouble. Even after Hades, when Acnologia showed up, that moron was the first to throw himself at him."
Gray shuddered, "Man, I'm still not sure how he was still able to walk after Hades. Got trounced, but gave that old bag of rats all the fight he could handle when the rest of us were too terrified to even move."
Snapping his fingers as a new memory was hooked by his train of thought, Gildarts recalled, guffawing,
"Oh man, that reminds me of the time I pulled up to fight some guy with no eyebrows, only to see the brat had beat me to it. Sure, he was half dead, but considering the dude was way above his pay grade, the fact Natsu had managed to give the guy a nasty shiner was quite the sight."
Gray hummed quietly in acknowledgement, frowning when he was beat yet again by Asuka in their game.
While the young girl giggled and stuck her tongue out tauntingly, Gray playfully pulled her cowboy hat down over her eyes, only eliciting more soft laughter.
Gray quietly shared, "Yeah, he changed after Tenrou."
"He…." Gray took a sullen expression, the lively chatter of the guild fading further into the realm of white noise, "He never told me much, just that he wasn't strong enough. He stopped challenging Erza to fights or trying to become S-class, and just focused on training."
Gildarts presumed flatly, "Let me hazard a guess, it was never enough?"
Thankfully, Gray's drooping visage was kept from souring any further when Asuka requested for him to place his hand against a piece of paper for her to trace around.
Smiling once more, he explained softly, "That's the jist of it."
"It felt like all he did was train." Gray licked his lips and swallowed,
"I remember us going to some beach resort to get ready for the Grand Magic Games, and before we wasted the entire time going to some potluck in the celestial realm-"
Gildarts did a double take, only after nodding in greeting to Macao and Wakaba as they passed by,
"Hold up, you went to a party for three months? What type of party was it and can I come next time?"
"No, time moves differently there, 8 or so hours in that realm was equal to 3 months in ours. Natsu, who didn't go to the party, had spent all those months training." Gray snorted dryly, withdrawing his hand only to see ink from Asuka's marker now stained his finger tips.
He promptly bopped the young girl's nose, leaving the pale tip with a blemish.
"God knows what going through his head during the Eclipse Gate Fiasco." muttered Gray, feeling his temples ache as he forced his mind to revisit so many things in such a short span of time, "Then there was Tartaros, after that the war, then E.N.D, then Zeref, then Acnologia."
"We were so caught up in the fact he had left, that none of us ever questioned as to why." Gray stated, lines being drawn across the bridge of his nose as his eyebrows formed a 'v', "Looking back on it now, he had every reason to."
"It's ridiculous, how much we depend on him, yet how much crap we give him at the same time. The moment he left, everything falls apart." he shook his head with distaste.
Inevitably, his wandering mind stumbled onto the night no one in the guild ever talked about, the night the Fire Dragon King fell, the night Igneel died.
The mere name had Gray shuffling uncomfortably in his seat.
"Y'know, I ran into him after he left." Gildarts shared softly.
Gray almost tore his neck as his head snapped to Gildarts, "Seriously?" he hissed.
Fiddling with one of his mechanical hand's loose screws, Gildarts offered a short nod, "Happy told me that before seeing me, Natsu hadn't smiled in weeks."
"Of course your gonna cheer him up, he looks up to you." Gray reasoned.
"Well, I ain't exactly the mentor I should be. His old man seemed to have given him all the tools he needs to build strength."
Gray rolled his eyes, "You gave one half baked lesson, so what? Doesn't mean he hasn't learned from you. You taught him how to do some things, and how not to do others."
Gildarts snickered for a moment before his face fell back into the firm lines of neutrality.
"I'm still not sure what I did wrong with that, to tell ya the truth." he admitted, face pinched with thought.
Gray snorted, "Do you know how many times Natsu has gotten served a slice of granny's humble pie? How many times he has been called out on him not thinking, him blindly rushing in?"
Gildarts' silence was sharp.
"Your lesson wasn't bad, it just wasn't for Natsu, it was for the Natsu you thought you knew." Gray spoke with sincere authority, "By the time you tried to shove the whole dang pie down his throat, the guy was full. No wonder he reacted the way he did."
"He changed. He listened." Gildarts finished the thought, earning a nod from Gray.
"Look, it's the principle of it. It probably didn't matter to him if he won or not, what mattered is he didn't give in. He was plenty aware of where he came up short, but he never let that stop him from putting everything into protecting us." Gray elaborated.
Scratching an eyebrow, Gray did his best to reassure him, "You taught him something with that, I know it for a fact. It just wasn't what you wanted him to learn."
"How can you be so sure?" Gildarts asked.
A shrug was his response, "Just trust me. Y'know he isn't the type to talk about these sort of things."
"He talked to me. Natsu did. About... his problems." Gildarts admitted with softness Gray didn't know he was capable of.
Gray's brain didn't know what to make of that for a few ticks as he blinked a few times, "R-really?"
He squinted at Gildarts, "You don't look like Lisanna."
Gildarts' usual hearty chuckle dully thumped from his chest, "I know."
"Was it... about his dad?"
"No," Gildarts shook his head, rubbing the side of his neck, "He was bothered that he left the guild."
"Whaddya' tell him?" Gray couldn't help but pry, still rattled that Natsu went to someone with a serious problem of his that wasn't Lisanna.
"Something Lisanna probably had told him already, y'know, minus her understanding and tact."
"Which was?"
Gildarts sent him a flat stare, almost snapping, "Quit with the questions, if you dyin' to know, go talk to her."
Surprising even himself with the bitterness in which he said that, the older man let out a heavy sigh.
"Don't apologize," Gray said the moment Gildarts opened his mouth for a follow up, "I get it, really, I do."
"He probably wouldn't be too happy knowing we're sitting around moping." the older man said as he raised his empty mug into the air and shook it to ask for refill.
Fed up dragging the mood down with their talk of Natsu, Gildarts quipped in an attempt to lighten things, "I would let Juvia handle it for the time being. Some things just need a woman's touch."
As Gray brushed the palm of his hand against a pant leg, a comfortable silence settled between the three of them.
"You really okay with your rival taking off with your girl though? I mean, all things considered, Natsu's a good looking guy. He had thousands of fangirls during the Grand Magic Games for a reason."
Gray sent the older man a half hearted glare, "Keep your kneecaps or keep talking, your choice."
"But Uncle Natsu likes Lushi! They even smooched!" Asuka finally decided to chime in, pressing a finger against her own lips several times to demonstrate, "Right on the lips, just like Mommy and Daddy!"
Gildarts took on an expression of pleased stupefaction, while Gray physically recoiled from the impact of that bombshell.
Gray had good money riding on whether that was true or not. He grabbed Asuka beneath her arms and held the giggling little girl up to eye level, demanding,
"Explain! Now!"