fandomtownies | The Perk, Thursday Morning

Wait, Tony had figured out the secret to relaxing? Sparkle was in need of pointers, if so. Because... Damn, this summer. He was pretty out of it this morning, but he had shopping to grab, and there was no way he was going to manage that without, like, half his body weight in coffee.

Judging by the barista's eyeroll, they got plenty of orders around here that were more or less just, "Hrngh."

It took him another few minutes and a mouthful coffee or ten before he even noticed the familiar face. His wave hello to Tony was also punctuated with a "Hrngh," but at least it was a slightly more coherent one.

Almost relaxing! Almost. He was a weirdo who found work relaxing, though.

"Hello to you too," Tony replied, glancing up as he smothered a grin.

Sparkle managed a little smile at that one, giving a sheepish little smile on turn.

"Hey, sorry. I'm still in the process waking up. How goes it?"

He was so not awake yet. It was still a work in progress.

Well that much Tony understood. "You've luckily caught me after two cups already."

Two massive cups.

"That good, huh?" Sparkle have a tiny smile, and then shook his head. "I have some catching up to do, I guess. It's definitely feeling like a two coffee day so far."

It had been a summer of two coffee days, Tony. Don't let Sparkle fool you.

Tony nodded to the seat across from him. "The perils of caffeine addiction," he teased.

"Ugh," Sparkle muttered as he slid into the seat across from Tony. "I mean, I guess there are worse addictions to have. This one at least keeps me from drooling on myself."

Which was important when you couldn't sleep!

Which would be why Tony was giving him a speculative look. "That bad, huh?"

Sparkle shrugged. If he was hunkering down a little in his seat and clutching his coffee like a lifeline, would anybody blame him?

"Sleep is hard," he complained. "It used to be way easier than this."

"There are bad days and good ones," Tony replied gently. He turned his focus back onto the small stack of technical drawings on napkins to begin drawing the specs of a new armor.

"Sometimes more than others," Sparkle agreed, sighing and nursing at his coffee for a few seconds. Then he leaned over slightly, curious. "What's that you're doing?"

Most people just doodled, like, dicks on napkins, didn't they?

"Design work." It was quickly taking the shape of a gauntlet. "For when I have access to the right materials again."

Or JARVIS stole them. Sigh.

Sparkle watched in silence for another minute, and then ventured, "It's a glove?"

He knew Tony was smart, but he still didn't really understand the scope of his brilliance. Not completely.

Which was funny, considering he'd known the much tinier Tony, too. There had been shawarma.

Tony grinned at that, turning the napkin for him to look at. "Repulsor gauntlet. Think... laser beam turned into concussive force."

Huh. There was a new one. Sparkle looked thoughtfully at the design before nodding just the slightest bit.

"So... you've come up with a way to punch things without having to actually punch them," he surmised. "Handy."

And Tony had to laugh at that. Even if the pun was unintentional. "I like building and designing. Keeps my brain active."

On better subjects than what kept him awake.

Sparkle glanced between Tony and the napkin, and couldn't help but smile just the slightest bit.

"Yeah? Kind of makes me regret how bad I suck at science," he decided. "Or, um, most things they teach in conventional high schools."

Sparkle had not really done well in conventional high school after going back to Toronto from Fandom. Go figure.

"Don't worry, I'm a bit of an outlier," Tony replied. Just a bit. The real outlier was Reed if you asked him. "And school was... well, I liked college a lot."

Because he latched onto a friend there. One who could give two shits about Howard Stark's money.

"College?" Sparkle chewed at his lip in thought. "Was there something, like, good about it? I'm kinda sorry there isn't a college on the island, but..."

He shrugged. He was kind of stuck here, unless he learned how to function in a different reality entirely, so going to post-secondary would kind of be redundant anyway.

"I went to boarding school basically the moment I was old enough. Not the kind here, the polo playing, rooming with Reginald the third type," he drawled. "So, college was like getting out of prison."

The corner of Sparkle's mouth twitched at the mention of prison. It was just a few days before the anniversary of him fleeing Canada so that he wouldn't end up in prison. Of course that was one of the things keeping him up at night.

He sighed and took another mouthful of coffee.

"Sounds pretty great," he hedged. He didn't sound unconvinced, per se. Just... wistful? Was wistful the right word for it? Maybe wistful. If tired.

"You could try community college," Tony pointed out. "A class or two in something that interests you."

Aaaaand there was the massive mother hen that was Tony Stark. Deep down inside.

"I... guess?" Sparkle fidgeted with his cup, and then shrugged and sighed. "I mean, maybe somewhere not my own world. But then there's all kinds of documents and stuff I'd have to sort through so that I, you know, exist there. Legally. Just seems like a headache."

Sure, that was his biggest problem, and not the crippling self-doubt and anxieties that were eating away at him from the inside these days.

"I have five PhDs and an AI with increasingly dubious morality. Between the two of us, I think we can manage something."

He watched Sparkle for a moment longer. "Maybe psychology?"

"Psychology?" Sparkle blinked up at Tony, and then chewed the inside of his cheek at that. "Why psych?"

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