Alfred's next class managed to go a lot better than the first. Although it would probably have been really hard for it not to. He'd grabbed a nap after meeting Matt, and woke up just in time to hustle down to the building. He found the room number, and—lecture hall! Yeah, okay, it made sense that Physics 101 would be a pretty enormous class.

He wedged into one of the tiny chairs and pulled the even tinier desk out. It only fit the space of one piece of paper. Geesh.

The rest of the students filtered in slowly, so he whipped his phone out and started messing around on Tetris. God he really needed to get a better phone, something with apps so he could… actually do stuff when he wasn't doing stuff.

"Alright…"

Oh, that was the teacher. Alfred finished this row then closed his phone and plopped it on his desk, then though better given the available space, and slipped it into his pocket.

"We're five minutes after starting time. Anyone who shows up after now is late. And yes," the professor continued as the whole class blinked in silence, "I mean that I'll be counting it. You will want to get here on time."

…man. At least he'd gotten here early enough to hear that. He'd been hoping for relatively lax professors…

Alfred bit his lip to stifle a yawn—had to be because of the nap he just took, right? There's no way he was tired again—or maybe just because of the class—and leaned forward, watching the professor. He was some old guy, pretty much looked like who you thought of if someone said 'professor' to you- old scratchy brown suit, bad combover…

"I'll be taking attendance. Last name, first name. Simply raise your hand."

He took this opportunity to space out again. Fortunately, he knew the alphabet, and paid enough attention to be listening for the Js. Rather than totally wandering off into a daydream, though, he scanned the room. His eyes landed on the tall blond guy.

Alfred's gasp was loud enough to make a third of the room look back to him. Including the teacher. Which made everyone who hadn't looked to begin with turn too.

"Is there a problem, sir?"

"Uhh…" Dammit! Was there some kind of conspiracy to make all his professors hate him from the first day? He'd bet there was! Maybe T and this dude were slipping sleeping pills in his drinks! And… making him gasp really loud! Yeah!

Okay, maybe not… but still.

"What's your name?"

"Crap, um- Jones. Alfred Jones." It occurred to him right after he gave his name that he should have risked supplying a fake. Oh well.

"Well, Alfred, I suppose I'll mark you present, won't I? But do try not to be a disruption; I don't tolerate people who become disruptions."

"N-no sir! I won't! …again! Pinky promise!"

That earned him a few chuckles from the surrounding seats, and the professor raised an eyebrow. "Continuing with the list, then… Biggs, Elizabeth?" He waited, and marked the paper when a girl held her hand high. "Good… now, tell me if I mispronounce this—Braginsky, Ivan?"

That's him!

He rose his hand!

Ivan!

Braginsky, Iv—er, Ivan Braginsky! And he must have been among the people who turned and laughed at him—Ivan must also know that Alfred was in here. Especially since he gave his name, and if Ivan had been poking around his Facebook…

Alfred drifted in and out of focus while the professor went over the syllabus. Weirdly, it was mostly when he was actually looking at the matching paper that he didn't absorb any of what the guy was saying. The words all just sort of wobbled around into nonsense.

His thoughts were preoccupied… did Ivan sign up for this class because he was in it? Could you even figure that out? Was Ivan breaking into secret college documents? Was he a spy? Okay, no—

His attention wavered back to where it was supposed to be as the professor went over grade distribution. Okay. Essays, participation, quizzes. Right. He could do this. He was eighteen. He was in college. Time to pay attention to stuff.

Images of Ivan sneaking around the White House were floating around in his head as the other students started standing up. Alfred rushed to gather his things up and shove them in his bag, but he dropped the syllabus across a row and slammed his leg into a chair arm trying to run over to get it.

By the time he got out of the room, he couldn't find Ivan in the crowd anywhere.