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Stark Industries, Monday

This was the third night in a row that he'd slept badly. It was the dreams, of course, but while usually Ender was resigned to them and simply took his sleep when he became too exhausted to keep going, the last batch had been more vivid than usual.

So it was with circles under his eyes and a mind more sluggish than usual that he took his usual perch behind the holoprojector at Stark's. He knew he was late, but he doubted that Stark would even notice.

He discovered, after about an hour of frustration, that he simply wasn't working as smoothly as he usually did, and he actually caught himself wondering if maybe it'd be better to do something else for the day.

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A little after Ender got to work, a shetland pony trotted in and looked around impatiently, as if to check Ender's progress.

He was followed by a rather tired-looking Tyler. "Hey," he greeted the student whose name he was sure he had heard at some point but didn't exactly have on the tip of his tongue. "This is Tony. He decided he had to come to work today. Don't worry, he'll get bored and want a treat instead in a few minutes."

Edited 2008-12-22 16:58 (UTC)

It took Ender a few moments to notice that it had been a pony that had just wandered in the door, but once he did, he wrote it off as par for the course. He leaned up, away from the display he'd all but draped himself over, and commented, "That about sounds like Stark."

Ender wouldn't know what 'respect for Stark' meant if it had fallen on his head in the shape of a pony.

The pony gave Ender a casual glare before turning his attention to a random pile of electronic parts, which he started poking at with his hooves. He might have been trying to build something, if he didn't smash them first.

"He's actually not that different," Tyler, who also didn't exactly specialize in respecting Tony, agreed. "Smaller. Quieter. And he bites now."

A pause as he took a better look at the boy. "I'm Tyler, by the way. You work here?"

"And he can't turn the music on," Ender provided. "We should keep him as a pony." He rubbed his face, to give himself the appearance of being something like awake before he answered the next question. "I'm Ender," he replied, "I just sleep here."

"I'd like to talk to him again sometime," Tyler admitted, and that was about as tender as he was going to get so Tony should consider it his Christmas present.

He gave Ender a skeptical look. "If you don't mind an editorial comment, you don't look like you sleep that much anywhere."

"Well, I had to wait a long time for him to turn into a pony," Ender replied. Apparently, he was in a dry mood, and he hadn't realised it. "It's quieter."

"He's been like this since the 14th," Tyler told him, with the slightest of smiles of appreciation at the dryness. "So I figure either he's past due to turn back, or he's stuck like this and you get to catch up on your sleep at work a lot more."

"I'm sure he'll find a way to pick an argument either way." He shot the pony another look; Stark inevitably found some reason to drag him off into a childish argument, and he really did doubt that being a pony would stop him. "Do you work here?"

The pony glared back, then trotted over to the stereo to see if there was a way to operate it with his teeth. Purely as an experiment, of course, and not at all to annoy Ender.

"I teach," Tyler said. "I'm a friend of Tony's and I got stuck with ponysitting duty."

Of course he was. Ender lifted an eyebrow at the pony, then shook his head. "I think we're lucky he can't talk to JARVIS right now," he said. "What do you teach?" The muscles in his arms seemed to have taken up working again. He rolled his shoulder lightly to get his circulation going again.

"It was chemistry," Tyler answered, keeping one eye on the pony. He was mashing at random knobs on the stereo, not having much effect.

"Next term? I'm still waiting to hear back. Not hard science, though. I need a break from that."

"It's probably a good idea to branch out," he said, keeping his own eye on the pony. He had to admit it was a little funny, and in his current state, half an amused smile might have crept onto his features. Tony was trying to beat him. "Although there's nothing wrong with hard science."

Tyler didn't remember asking for Ender's opinion, but he was aware that had never stopped any student in Fandom. "Nothing wrong with it," he agreed. "I just need to not blow things up for a couple months. It helps keep my head straight."

The pony finally remembered the stereo had a remote, dragged it out from under something, and stepped on it to turn the radio on. The volume blared and what came out was a garbled mix of NPR and gospel because his nudging had messed with the station, but it was noise.

If ponies could grin in triumph, Tony would. He settled for a pleased whinny.

"You have the mind of a five year old," Ender informed the pony from afar. "Jarvis, can you take the volume down?"

There was a mechanical burst of agreement, and the volume went down a few notches. He was pretty sure that Tony wasn't capable of manipulating things subtly enough to really do anything about it, at least not without breaking the remote-- although dumb luck could sometimes do a lot.

"I think not blowing things up is usually a good idea no matter what," he said, and the irony on that one was his alone.

"I never remember Jarvis would work for me," Tyler mentioned, then raised his voice. "And, Jarvis, pick a station without static. Thank you."

Jarvis picked NPR, which was easy enough for Tyler to ignore. The pony either got bored or decided this particular project had gone well enough, and he whinnied with contentment as he went back to prodding at other machinery after a last toss of his mane at Ender.

"It's a tool," Tyler said, when his attention was back on Ender. "Whether it's a good one or not depends on who has the weapon and what their goals are."

"If you're under attack and you have to retaliate," Ender replied, because this was a topic he knew more than enough about. "Put on a show. You don't want to be caught with your pants down. But when you've got a weapon, it also becomes a lot easier to fire one, a lot easier to become the person who puts other people under attack." He looked away from Tony. "So I'd say 'not blowing things up' should be high on anybody's list."

There wasn't too much Tyler could say to that except the obvious, not without showing his hand much more than he was willing to.

"You've thought a lot about this," he said, then relented. "But that's some of what I worry about when I take a break. It's easy to make napalm. I figured it out when I was 14. But once I teach somebody else to do it, I lose control of how they might use it, whether it's attacking some other poor bastard or just making a mistake."

The back of his neck was stiffening, and he rubbed at it. "I don't think art teachers worry about things like that."

"They probably don't," Ender agreed, shrugging a little, "But some of us aren't born art teachers." He didn't really care how much of his hand was showing; the worst was so horrible he didn't think anybody could infer it, and he was alright with that. "A real teacher makes sure people come out better on the other side."

Not that he'd had a lot of those.

Edited 2008-12-22 19:21 (UTC)

"I think a real teacher tries," Tyler quibbled, after some thought. "It would be nice if I could change the world for everybody in my classroom, but even at a school like this, there will be people who don't want to get better. About all you can do is try to give them something useful to do for a few hours."

"Real students want to get better," Ender argued in return, "Otherwise there wouldn't be any point in them showing up at all. And it's not about changing the world. It's about making sure they're equipped to do better than they did before." Like his practice group. He wondered if he'd been lucky with how eager they were.

"Fine, but not everyone who sits down in a classroom is going to be a real student," Tyler claimed. "Most of them, if you're lucky, yeah. But you get into leading horses to water and making them drink."

Tony glanced up. "Not you."

Ender looked unoffended. It wasn't as if Tyler knew him. "If they're in a class because of their own choice, you can kick them in the butt," he said, "And figure out how they work and how to get to them to." There was a short pause, on his part, as he rolled Tyler's words around in his mind. "But I keep forgetting high school isn't voluntary."

"It is and it isn't," Tyler shrugged. He'd gotten out of it, but he'd been insane and he'd made up for it later. "But you're right. If I'm good at my job, I have to at least try to get through to them." Which was always a challenge, making himself care, but it was a challenge he kept signing up for.

"Is it not voluntary at home for you?"

"The most important thing to know is why they're doing it," he said, tapping his fingers against the holographic display in front of him. He paused, thinking. "I agreed to go to military school when I was six," Ender said, matter-of-factly, "So I wouldn't know."

Another baby soldier, then. Tyler wondered how much you could agree to anything at six, but he swallowed that back. "No wonder you'd thought about blowing things up, then," he finally said.

The pony got bored with pushing things about with his nose and came over to nuzzle Tyler's knee impatiently. "See, it's what I said. He wants a snack now."

"I just need to not blow things up for a couple of lifetimes," he said, mimicking Tyler's tone from earlier. Ender looked aside, raising his brow at the pony again. "It's a miracle he gets anything done with that attention span."

Edited 2008-12-22 20:18 (UTC)

It wasn't really funny when the content was considered, yet Tyler smiled at the imitation. "Always good to take a break," he said.

The pony was starting to tug him toward the door. "He concentrates when it's important -- it's just, what's important to him can change fast."

And right then, what was important to Tony seemed to be lunch.

"Sure," Ender said, watching the pony, and wondering, at last, if maybe it'd be an idea just to find a nice spot in the shop to nap. Lock the door, and nobody would notice. "And sometimes it's even effective."

It wasn't that he insulted Tony because he hated the man. It was that he'd gotten the feeling that that was the way Stark seemed to communicate, when it came right down to it.

The pony raised his tail haughtily, as if he wasn't even going to dignify Ender's comment with a response, then looked back at Tyler. If he wanted to stay and talk to the child all day, he could, but Tony was going to go find somebody kind enough to get him lunch.

"Sometimes," Tyler said ambiguously. "Nice to meet you, anyhow. If he's still like this next Monday I might be in again."

"And otherwise I'll see him," Ender said, "He can't seem to get enough of trying to insult me."

He nodded at Tyler, in some semblance of a goodbye that wasn't quite disrespectful or distrustful. Maybe because he'd mellowed, maybe because of Tyler himself, but Ender filed that instinct away to be poked at later. "Good luck with the new class."

Tyler considered telling Ender that Tony wouldn't bother with insults if he didn't think Ender had some worth, but Ender seemed bright enough to figure that out on his own. It wasn't really Tyler's business, anyhow.

"Thank you," he said instead. "Maybe I'll even see you in it."

"Maybe," Ender answered. Suddenly, he sounded every bit the fourteen-year-old that he was. "Anything beats modeling class."

Okay, that took Tyler's attention off the business of getting the pony out into the cold. Food would still exist in 30 seconds, anyhow. "You took Deadpool's modeling class?" he asked. "Just knowing that class existed scared me."

"I didn't take it," Ender explained, "The Powers That Be enrolled me in it. I guess they thought it was funny." He thought back to that one-- and Deadpool's clear insanity. "I think he needs something constructive to do with his time."

"Ender?" Ino said, poking her head into the... store she'd never been in before. "You here?"

Radio told her he was normally here, but who knew if he'd gone home or something for the holidays.

He looked up, to find the source of the voice that sounded vaguely familiar, at least. "I'm here," Ender answered. It didn't need much else of a reaction; if she was looking for him, that meant she'd get to the point sooner rather than later.

"Oh good," she said, slipping inside more fully. "I'm Ino, if you don't remember, 'cause it was a while ago that we met," and she didn't assume everyone remembered what she did, "but yeah. I don't know if you've heard radio? But Ichigo's turned into a fox, so I'm taking care of him 'til he's human again. Just, like, in case you were wondering."

"I heard radio," he said, and took a quiet moment to marvel at how easy it was to get used to something like that. He'd always been adaptable, but this was one of those things that'd make people dub you crazy if you told them.

Not that he wasn't, already, and as far as things to get used to went, this one wasn't really that harmful at all. "So I take it he won't be coming back to the room any time soon?"

"I don't think he'll be? He might wander in if he manages to sneak off, but so far his wandering has consisted of trying to eat chocolate and cookies, so I'm not sure how likely it is."

Ino tugged on her hair. "Just thought I'd make sure you knew, seemed like the thing to do, you know?"

"It solves the mystery of why he hasn't been around in a while," Ender replied, "As a fox or as a human. Thanks." His head nodded along with the words, and he sat back against his chair.

"Not a problem," she said, with a shrug and leaning against the door. "That's all, really, that I wanted to say. See you 'round, Ender."

"See you around," he said, wiping at his eyelids. "Try to keep my roommate in one piece, and thin enough to fit through the door."

Ino laughed. "He's more likely to develop a ribbon allergy than get fat," she said brightly. "I'll give you a few pictures!"

No matter if he wanted them, or not.

"It's always nice to have some leverage," Ender said, semi-seriously. He honestly didn't really care, but that was alright. He'd deal with Ichigo when Ichigo came back.

"Sure," she said, with an idle wave of her hand as she slipped out of the place. "Though I do this mostly for fun. Happy Holidays, Ender."

"Happy holidays," he echoed, and then returned to the task at hand: not falling asleep on any Stark Industries property.

He was stronger than that.

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