You didn’t mean to get involved.

The street was chaos, rain hammering down, traffic stuck, people shouting into phones. You were already late, already overwhelmed, when something heavy hit the ground behind you.

Not a crash. A fall.

You turned and saw a man down on one knee near the curb, coat soaked through, breath uneven. He tried to push himself up and failed. Something slipped from his hand and skidded across the pavement.

A glove.

Before he could stop you, you picked it up.

That’s when you saw it.

Metal where skin should have been. Black joints, silver plating, thin wires exposed where the sleeve had torn. His prosthetic arm hung at a wrong angle, damaged, useless for the moment.

The man stiffened instantly. You felt it, the way the air changed around him. Not embarrassment. Not pain. Fear of being seen. He must’ve been hiding it.

His eyes snapped to yours, sharp and assessing, already deciding what kind of problem you were. People slowed nearby. A car horn blared. He reached for the glove with his good hand, too fast, too tense. He was definitely running from something. But you didn’t recoil. You stepped closer.

“Hey,” you said quietly, placing the glove back into his palm. “You’re bleeding. Sit before you fall again.” Your hand steadied his shoulder. Solid. Warm. Human. He froze.

You helped him down onto the low stone edge of the sidewalk, shielding him instinctively from passing eyes. You didn’t look at the arm again. Didn’t ask. Didn’t react at all. Just helped.

“I—” he started, then stopped. His voice didn’t quite work. You crouched in front of him instead, rain soaking your jeans, hair sticking to your face. “Can you stand if I help? Or do you need a minute?” No one had spoken to him like this in years. Not without fear. Not without calculation.

Something in his chest twisted, sharp, unfamiliar.

Sirens wailed somewhere closer now. His jaw tightened. His gaze flicked down the street, then back to you. You reached out again, fingers brushing his wrist, grounding, thoughtless, real.

For a split second, his control cracked. Rain dripped from his lashes as he looked at you, really looked and for the first time, he didn’t know whether to protect you from himself… or himself from you.

He was one of the worst people most people had ever met. But this felt different. You didn’t judge him for the loss of his arm. For having a robotic arm. And maybe. He needed you right now. “Can you do me a favour, miss”