Stark Industries [Friday]

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

Kaylee was in no mood today. She was trying to keep upbeat, but there were...problems, and she didn't know what to do.

So it was an extremely frustrated Kaylee who was painstakingly taking apart a microwave today. Why? Because it was something to do with her hands.

[AFK from like 2-4 but THEN AROUND ALL NIGHT YAY FOR ONCE I HAVE A FRIDAY NIGHT OFF. *spends it at the computer*]

Comments

[momslilassassin]

After PE, Ben's headache had bloomed into something positively migraine-y. Desperate for something to focus on that wasn't everyone else's terrible moods, he'd tried working on his droid, only to discover he was out of important parts.

So there he was at Stark's with a list of supplies in hand. "Hi," he said quietly.

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

Kaylee looked over at him, and her memory of what had happened last week coupled with her frustration in general had her sniffing a, "Hi," and then going back to her work.

[momslilassassin]

Ben rubbed the bridge of his nose. This wasn't helping his headache at all. "I need a couple of parts?" he tried.

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you went and was an ass to my boyfriend for no reason," she said as casually as she could manage, furiously yanking some wires out of the microwave.

[momslilassassin]

Oh, there had been a reason. It just wasn't a good one.

"He's boring," Ben retorted.

See? Not a good reason.

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

"He ain't boring!" she protested, throwing those wires down. "Nuh uh! He's really, really shy, an' thanks so much for makin' that worse for no good reason."

[momslilassassin]

Ben rolled his eyes. "He's nine miles tall. Shy isn't going to work for him."

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

"It don't matter how tall he is, he's shy an' if you can't tell that then you ain't much of a reader, though you'd hardly have t'be one to tell that," she snapped. "An' regardless of him bein' shy, why the hell would you go up t'someone you don't even know an' make him feel so low? What'd he ever do t'you?"

[momslilassassin]

"He came up to me!" Ben retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'd been planning to very happily spend my life Ned-free. And he told me I must not be very good at my job! I'm not the only bad guy here!"

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

"You was mean to him first, an' he was just makin' conversation," she replied coldly. "He already talked t'me 'bout how you told him he got no appeal? Why would you say that? You don't know anything 'bout him or the kinda effect that kinda talk has on him."

[momslilassassin]

"I said I didn't see his appeal," Ben replied with the maddening accuracy of someone with a photographic memory. "And I don't. He's been at this school how long, dates you, and still has trouble wrapping his mind around people coming from other places? Really?"

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

"He's been at the school for as long as me, he knows I'm from space but it still ain't the same as your space, an' he's led a real sheltered life," she replied angrily. "You don't know nothin' about him or where he comes from. He's had just as hard a life as you or me, just in a different way. But you didn't bother tryin' t'know a thing about him. You just made him feel bad about his self at the dance. Great timin' there, Ben."

[momslilassassin]

Any other day and Ben'd be apologizing for being an ass. But his head hurt. And he didn't like Ned.

"His life can't be both sheltered and hard," Ben snapped back. "To have a hard life you have to leave your room."

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

"His mama died, real sudden-like, when he was nine," Kaylee said slowly, coldly. "His daddy abandoned him at a school where they stifled the life out of him. He went nine gorram years without no one t'call a friend, an' no one t'talk to. T'say he's shy is t'understate it somethin' fierce. He has horrible self-esteem an' I been doin' everythin' in my power the last year t'make him feel okay about who he is, an' you come along an' without knowin' nothin', wreck him for the hell of it? I wouldn't never do that t'someone you love, Ben. Never."

[momslilassassin]

Empathy was a cruel gift to have sometimes.

Ben stood there and listened to the entire thing, biting his lip hard to stop from doing something humiliating like bursting into tears.

"Oh," he said softly. "I'm...going to go away now."

[weefeetbigboots.livejournal.com]

Any other day, she would have apologized and gone over to give him a hug, to make him feel better.

Today, she was too mad. "You do that. An' think about it next time you decide it might be fun t'mess with someone."

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded and slunk back out of the shop. He hated this week.