You sit out on your front porch, scribbling out concepts and bouncing between ideas. If you phrased it this way, then maybe... No, that wouldn't work. Maybe if the numbers went here?? No... aurgh, this is getting ridiculous.

You slam the notebook you've been cross referencing to everything else closed before laying down on the cement, thinking. You scrape and scratch your brain.

There has to be a way to simplify using the device, and better ways to actually make the product easy to construct. Are you even sure it would work? You haven't been able to prototype it, let alone make a 3D concept piece. You flop to the ground and roll over into your back. Really, they should have a team working on this.

You rub your face, agonizing over the components of this darn project when you hear your phone go off. You grumble picking it up and answering.

"Hello??"

"Hey! It's Marvin, you busy right now?"

You glare at your messy books "kinda..?"

"Oh, gotcha. Well, I was gonna go get some of those milk shakes or bubble tea things want any?"

You ponder long and hard "Hmm...sure..."

"Cool, what cha thinkin then?"

That you want to stab you whirring brain out "I dunno, you're the magician, surprise me." You half grimace, half grin into the receiver.

"Alright. You can't get mad at me if it sucks though."

You laugh lightly "yeah, yeah, okay. I'll see you soon."

"Bye!"

"Bye.." you end the call. Glancing at the books around you. You heave a heavy sigh and sit up, snatching a few books to stack as neat as you can, without losing any papers. Why did you even agree to any of this? This kind of machine was near impossible to be designed alone. On top of that, how are you supposed to get your work done with Marvin here? He means well, really, he does, but he's just so distracting! His darn jokes and picking on you. Constantly poking and prodding you when your trying to think. How much he asks you questions. How he's always making you stop what your doing for dumb things like sleep. But especially how much..he...cares...

He cares a lot. And sometimes...it's nice that someone does.

You watch him pull up and park on the curb.

"'Eeyy!" He dashes up the few stairs of your porch "brought some brain fuel." He hands you your beverage.

"Pff, Id hardly call it that" you smile, taking a small sip.

He sits down on the stair in front of your door. "So what cha workin on?"

"Okay, you're gonna love this." You clap your hands together "waking up in the morning is awful, right? Loud alarms, repeating sounds, crackly radio, it all sucks. But what if it didn't have to??" You pause long enough for him to signal you to continue "introducing the Z-pet!" You gesture to a lump of wires and your notebooks. "It's not done yet, but it's going to have different wake up games like tag, or reflex wake up "scratches", or Simon says. Then at the end of the day it can remind you to sleep by doing yoga with you or enjoying "dinner." It's like setting up a sleep ritual to make it easier."

He grins "that's actually pretty cool! Would he just drive off the night stand for the tag game?"

"Pff, probably." You smile, thinking about the odd sight. "Sadly though, I've had a really hard time visualizing how everything is going to fit and work together."

"Is that what's got you so worked up?"

"Honestly, yeah..." you take another sheepish sip of your drink.

"Well, why didn't ya say so!" His arms fly outrageously, "Here, hold my shake." He pushes his shake into your hands before going over to the bunches of material. Marvin picks up each item before encasing it in a faint green glow that rotates in all directions. Once all the pieces have been observed he reaches for a notebook.

"Wait! What are you doing?!" You lurch to grab it away.

"I'm absorbing the data to form into a coherent 3D rendition of all the components and hypotheticals." He states matter of factly, magically flitting through each page, not even looking at them.

"Why on earth would you need to do that?"

"To conjure a functioning simulator for you to build everything in." Marvin moves on to the last half of the books "it should only take a few moments."

You stand dumbfounded as he framed a spot in the air with his fingers before expanding the area to span most of the length of your porch.

"Woah... it's like Ironman's hologram stuff.."

"Yeah! Now you can build it as many times as you need!" He flips around to face you with a bright smile.

"Thank you so much!" You give him a quick hug before setting to work, rotating and adjusting the functions of different pieces.

The sun feels warm, with a cool breeze just barely going by. Marvin watches how fluidly you flick and move everything into place. It's like a tide, pulling things together, or pushing them back to try something else. He leans against the entry way wall with a sigh, catching a glimpse of your focused expression. It's so cute how your eyebrows knit together, how sharply honed in you are on the task at hand. His stomach flutters lightly when the sun catches you just right, highlighting your best features. You pace about the area and he just can't bring himself to look away.

You're amazing, wonderful, gorgeous.

He loves you.

Marvin hasn't quite plucked up the guts to say it yet, but he will, some day.

"Well, Marvin, what do you think?" His thoughts are cut short by his heart stuttering at the way his name sounds coming from you. "I think it's pur-fect" he rolls his 'r' just to annoy you.

"No. Bad. Do not."

He grins at your annoyance

Worth it.