Sam Goode (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} begoode) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} madisonvalley,@ 2018-03-31 12:56:00 |
 |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
WHAT: A meeting of minds
WHEN: Recently
WHY?: Sam and Fitz have similar interests, it turns out.
WARNINGS: n/a
STATUS: Closed and Completed
Sam smiled as he watched the other man work. Having won a school and college sponsored engineering contest, he was here at the lab to get a tour of what a real science person did. He had been in Luke’s lab before, but that was all. Here, and now, he was getting to watch actual work, and it was fascinating!
“How did you end up with this job? And what drew you to it, in the first place?”
***
“Well, actually, I’m a professor over at the college as my main job here,” Fitz replied. “And I wound up with this job… a couple years ago, back when the casino and the lab were built, pretty much. Man named Tony Stark put the lab in and turned us all loose. I just sort of wound up in charge. Woman named Raven Reyes is pretty much my second-in-command, she’s in charge when I’m not around. She’s not here at the moment, unfortunately.”
He grinned. “And I’ve been into engineering since I was a very small child.”
***
Sam nodded, listening. “Cool.” He smiled as he heard the man’s story, which was pretty awesome. Not a bad thing at all. Hearing that, he was reminded how anything could happen.
“I want to be an engineer when I am slightly more grown up.” Sam grinned from the position of his shortness and his still just barely 18-ness. “I’m still figuring out how everything works.”
***
Fitz laughed. “Always good knowing what you want,” he said. “It’s important to know what you want to do, or at least what you’re interested in. Have a start on things.”
He led Sam over to one of the workstations, the one he typically used as his own. “Of course, you don’t want to get so wrapped up in what you’re working on that you miss out on everything,” he added. “That… was me, to a degree. Of course, to the rest of it? I didn’t get everything to begin with. I was a child prodigy, so…”
A shrug of one shoulder; it was what it was, most of the time.
***
Sam nodded.”I was kind of like that after my dad vanished, obsessed with finding him, and learning what had happening to him. Right before I came here, I learned, and its like a load of weight off of me.” Sam smiled at Fitz, following, peering at the workstation.
“Now, with adulthood doing it’s best to slap me in the face, I am looking forward to trying to actually do something with my life, even if it does happen to be trapped inside this dome.” He grinned wider.
“Ever since I was a kid, I liked computers and learning how things worked, but especially this last year, here, I have really, really, wanted to focus on it.”
***
“Take advantage of it here,” Fitz said. “Everything -- the ability to do something with your life and the ability to be with someone you love. The ability to know people you’d never know back home. Everything. Because you never know when you’ll be back home.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about the lecture there, I’m just kind of in dad mode at the moment -- my daughter’s a toddler, enough said.”
***
Sam nodded, listening, smiling warmly. “Absolutely! I found a woman who is amazing and I am… I’m going slow, but, well, I really like her.” He nodded. Melissa was an amazing girl, and he hoped things worked out for them.
“And yeah, that is scary, too, but like you said, you have to try to sieze the day, so to speak.” Sam smiled wider, eyes wide as he listened.
“Yeah? That is cool! She is from here, or home?” Sam liked kids. He was not ready for one himself, but he liked them.
***
“Eleanor was born here,” Fitz said. “Her mother and I were friends back home. Then when we got here… it turned into more. We got married a couple years ago, and then Eleanor came along.”
It was a gross oversimplification of the amazing gift that was his family, but accurate nonetheless.
***
“Amazing.” Sam smiled wider as he listened. This was so cool. He already liked this guy. They seemed incredibly different, and yet somewhat similar. It was nice to talk to someone who shared some of the same ideas and thoughts on things. He and Melissa did, but he also had other interests, and here he was, running into someone who shared those. This was cool!
“I’m glad you’ve had this chance. This place needs more joy in it.”
***
“It really does,” Fitz said. “Not that it doesn’t already have a lot, but you can always use more.” Because so many people came from really crappy places.
“So, tell me something,” he aside, idly tidying up his workstation -- it was just overflow from home, random things to toy with while he was there, but he still took pride in keeping it neat. It was just who he was. “What is there to you besides ‘kid who likes engineering’?”
If there was a wistful note to his voice, he couldn’t help it. At Sam’s age, Fitz had already been through college and had too many degrees.
***
“Me? Other than engineering? I suppose…” He smiled. “The kid who grew up without his dad due to aliens stealing him. The young man who loves photography because in the eye of the camera you control how truth is seen and understood. The young adult who can wield a gun like his own hand because of years of video games, and is always looking for trouble, but also loves to still play those games.”
He chuckled. “There’s a lot to me, still, truthfully. Our lives, I think, present us with choices, and who we are depends on what we choose in those moments.”
***
“I like that,” Fitz said with a slight laugh. “You are such an optimist even in the face of far more than you should have been able to face.” The younger man reminded him of himself, in a way.
It was kind of disconcerting, really, but not at all in a bad way.
He perched on his stool, on one side of the worktable, motioning for Sam to take the other one. “So, what do you think about this?” he said, motioning to the pile of… whatever… on the table in front of them. It wasn’t much of anything at the moment, it was actually more a bunch of “oh hey let’s put this together and maybe that and see if we can eventually get something we can turn into part of a tiny robot” parts than anything else.
***
Sam smiled lopsidedly. “I was a geek in school. I was trained to face adversity.” It was a somewhat pessimistic statement, but he also saw it as truth. Being bullied, being looked down on, being made fun of? All of that had trained him to step up. All of that had taught him how to shoulder pressure and the weight of events, and still act.
And so he felt it true.
Sam settled onto a seat and peered at the pile, his eyes alight with curiosity. He looked closely, taking out a jeweler’s loupe, which he flicked to it’s highest magnification as he looked. He spoke slowly when he did.
“Engineering possibilities. Also, fun ones. Endothermic shielding, possibly a robot, possibly a mini and minimal mech suit.” he flicked the loupe off his eye and smiled at Fitz.
“Looks like a fun time to me.”
***
That settled it.
“You want to come tinker in here a bit? Work with me in my lab space? You figured out exactly what I was thinking about using it for.” And people who could keep up with Fitz -- or even come close -- were in pretty short supply.
***
Sam’s eyes went wide. “You mean it? For real?” Sam hadn’t dreamed he would get this kind of chance. He gaped at the other man, and swallowed, then nodded, eyes not quite showing a little sheet of moisture.
“Yes, please. I would really, really like that.”
***
“So it’ll be a thing, then,” Fitz said with a nod. “We’ll have to get you a badge or something that says you’re underage, of course, since we’re connected to the casino and you need to be able to walk around.” He wouldn’t be the only one, Cassie Holmes had the same one just because of Phil.
“But yeah, it shouldn’t be a problem to get that for you fairly quickly.”
***
Sam bounced, almost, grinning widely, astonishment running through him and showing on his face. “Wow! Thank you! So much!” he was flailing internally. This was really happening, oh my god!
“I’m 18, just nor 21, or college educated, yet. I graduate in May, if that helps.” Sam grinned again.
“II can start as soon as it’s ready.”
***
“I’ll get everything going on it soon as we’re done here,” Fitz said with a nod. “You should be in here… within a couple days, I’m guessing.”
He was looking forward to somebody working with him, honestly. Who looked up to his work the way Micah had. It was the kind of reminder he needed sometimes, that he wasn’t as adrift as he sometimes felt -- parenthood did that to you, whether you realized it would or not -- and that he had a handle on things.
***
Sam smiled and stuck out his hand to the other man. “Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. I'm definitely ready and willing to go to work.”
He's been doing party time with as a clerk until he had left that job recently, so he was really looking forward to a new job, and one that he knew he works learn a lot at. This was awesome!
**”
Fitz laughed slightly as he shook Sam’s hand; he wondered if Tony had felt this way with him, somewhere under all that bravado. Was this what it’d been like to have him around, all awed and excited?
“Well, I’m looking forward to having you here,” Fitz said. “You’ll be keeping everything running smoothly, pitching in when anybody needs a hand, you get to work on anything that you’ve got particularly piquing your interest -- though please, nothing that’s going to go boom; that’s sort of Raven’s thing.”
He just grinned at that and nudged Sam over towards another workstation, this one empty. He didn’t know how it was going to work out with the new kid, but he just had a feeling about him.
He just had a feeling.
***
FIN