"I mean, I do think you could? It's just-- people are taught math and science in confusing ways that don't make any sense and make them feel stupid, and so they're scared of it and they don't-- expect it to be a system that they can understand and work with and draw conclusions about? They expect it to be something horrible and complicated that makes them feel like an idiot. And then they get overwhelmed and instead of thinking about the problem they throw words or numbers around randomly in the hopes that those are the right words or numbers that will-- not even be the right answer, not really. Just make the problem go away. And I think that's what's happening with you. But if it turns out that actually you just don't get special relativity, well, that's fine? Some people's brains are bad at getting things. I had a student once who just could not read a graph or remember a formula no matter how much I worked with her on it."

Martin is just going to bury his head in Lev’s hair now. “You’re really good.” His voice is shaky. 

"I don't love you for your ability to understand physics! --Also you can always tell me to stop explaining something. I know I get really excited about things and I'm kind of used to having a captive audience."

“I like it when you’re excited! I do, I just—“ Vague hand motion. “You’re really cute and good and I don’t want to disappoint you, and you’re smart, and—“ Shaky breath. “I don’t want you to be less excited about things. It’s just—overwhelming is a good word for it, yeah. Not the—you being excited about it? But the—I don’t know. The feeling like it’s obvious and I’m just stupid for not getting it faster.”

"Martin, special relativity is hard. --I mean, in some sense it doesn't matter, if something is hard for you then it is actually hard even if it isn't hard for everyone, but. I promise you. Special relativity is hard."

Martin is just going to cling to Lev some more and maybe cry a little. "I love you."

"...I'm not mad at you but I am pretty pissed at whoever convinced you you were stupid."

“Kind of a long list of people to be mad at.”

"I'm good at being mad at people."

“And I’m not, so I guess we even each other out, then?”

"I don't know, I am pretty sure they could use two people's worth of mad."

“Maybe some of them, I guess? Lots of them didn’t do anything wrong. I was applying to jobs I wasn’t qualified for, surprise, turns out I don’t know how to do them! It makes sense that people make that assumption, you know?”

"...all right, that's fair, but also managing to come off as an incompetent person with a master's degree when you're a high school dropout is impressive."

“I guess.” 

"No, really. Imagine if someone else had done that."

“O...kay? I’m, um, imagining it.”

"...I was about to say 'you would agree that was impressive and they had probably learned a lot on the job and stuff' but then I remembered that either you were going to disagree with me or tell me that actually that only applies to people who are not you."

Forehead kiss. “I love you. I, um, honestly I have no idea how impressive it would be, except I did it so it can’t be that hard?”

"See! This is the part that makes me get angry at people!"

“You really don’t have to be. I mean, not that I don’t appreciate it? But it’s okay.”

"You're not stupid. Nobody is stupid. Some people are slower, or easily distracted, or their brains can't process some kinds of information, and, sure, there are some people who are never going to learn Hebrew no matter how much they try and some people who are never going to be able to count change right however much they try. But nobody is stupid, nobody is-- just basically incapable of learning things or drawing conclusions from evidence or solving problems or asking good questions. And most people can do so much more than they think they can if you're just patient and you look for the reasons they aren't getting it and you're willing to change what you're doing when it doesn't work and you don't assume that it's because they're not trying or they're just stupid. If someone is slow the thing you do is you teach things more slowly, you don't-- get mad at them for having the brain they have or make them feel like because they learn things slowly they can't learn things at all. But there are so many people who go around thinking that they're stupid and if they do something clever then they assume it must not be that clever because they can do it and-- it's so goddamn frustrating."

“...wait, don’t you think you’re stupid?”

"...okay it is no fair applying my rants to me, and also I think I am capable of solving problems and learning things. I just don't think my ability to solve problems is enough for me to be worthy of love, which is an entirely different problem."

“I dunno, I think if your rants are going to be applied to me then it’s really only fair if they’re applied to you too. Like, that’s kind of the whole concept of fairness, is that everyone gets the same amount of things, I’m pretty sure.” Forehead kiss. “I bet you wouldn’t say that literally anybody else’s ability to solve problems made them unworthy of love, even if they were loads worse than you.”

"Well, I guess you like me even though I'm a failure, so."