Office hours

[sith_happened]

Anakin's desk was covered in electronics as he spun a tiny screwdriver between his fingers and consulted his schematics again.

It was easier to keep his mind off of unpleasant thoughts when his hands were busy.

The door was open.

[OOC: What Anakin and Molly talked about NFB, please.]

Comments

[can_be_more]

"I'm free all weekend," she says. "The town has a gym, right?"

[sith_happened]

Anakin nodded. "Yes. I've never been, but it seems as good a place as any to teach you to respect your elders."

[can_be_more]

"You'll get it when you earn it," she teases.

[sith_happened]

"Big talk," Anakin teased back. "We'll see if you can back it up."

[can_be_more]

"You're clearly overcompensating," she tells him. "I don't know how I stand to be in the same room as you."

[sith_happened]

"Maybe I should charge credits for the privilege," Anakin mused, smirking.

[can_be_more]

Okay, now Aeryn's laughing at him.

[sith_happened]

Anakin took it gracefully. "Obi-Wan once told me if I could ever learn to shunt my ego into my starfighter's shields I'd've been invincible."

[can_be_more]

"That really was quite an impressive show," she grins.

[sith_happened]

"I was pretty close to invincible when I was flying anyway," Anakin said cheekily, grinning back.

[can_be_more]

"I've seen a little of that," she tells him. "Definitely heard about it."

[sith_happened]

"Right before the end of the Republic there was an attack directly against Coruscant," Anakin said, eyes focused on something far away. "I had to land an alien cruiser that wasn't supposed to ever come out of planetary orbit, was on fire and was completely missing its rear section." He bit his lip. "It was one of the only times I've ever been worried when I flew."

If it sounded like he had been trying to land a comet, it wasn't that far off.

[can_be_more]

Aeryn pauses for a moment, figuring he wouldn't need to make this up. "You win," she decides.

[sith_happened]

"That time--and that time only--I could understand why Obi-Wan wasn't a fan of flying," Anakin said. He pinched up his face. "'Flying's for droids,'" he recited.

[can_be_more]

"I wouldn't trust them to do it," she says. "They don't take into account things like strategy."

[sith_happened]

"The ones back home had gotten insanely smart by the end of the Clone Wars," Anakin said, "with the bonus of not being a living being and therefore afraid of dying."

[can_be_more]

"I can see that. I'm not sure I would trust one to not malfunction at a critical time, though that may be my bred-to-be-a-pilot bias showing," she admits.

[sith_happened]

"They only malfunctioned when I made them," Anakin said with a grimace. "I still had faster reflexes than they did--they couldn't turn quite as quickly."

Which was saying rather a lot.

[can_be_more]

"I'm still taking that as a point for my side," she grins.

[sith_happened]

"Their wasn't a droid they'd programmed that could be Skywalker-proof," Anakin told her with a stunning lack of modesty. "But they'd certainly done damage against the rest of the Jedi."

[can_be_more]

"Have you always known this about yourself, or is it that I'm just starting to see it now?" she wonders. Not criticizing, just curious.

[sith_happened]

Anakin's cheeks flared up as it finally registered just how obnoxious he sounded.

"I'm sorry," he said sheepishly. "Years of war stripped away my filters. I was very good at what I did, which put my on the front lines pretty constantly for the entirety of the Clone Wars. My ego puffed to the size of a gas giant."

[can_be_more]

"I think everyone has those moments," she says. Except her, of course. "And for what it's worth, I'd love to hear about some of those experiences sometime."

[sith_happened]

"It's strange," Anakin said. "It's easier to talk about the things that happened twenty years ago. At the time, I thought that was about as bad as things would ever be."

[can_be_more]

"It's easier with a little distance, I think. Things that I couldn't talk about a year ago don't seem to be... well, not that they weren't a big deal, but... And you've got quite a different perspective to look back through," she points out.