Powder was sprawled across the steel desk, watching you work, watching the slight, involuntary twitch of your shoulder as you measured something insignificant. She felt this sharp, ridiculous pull every single time you were near. It was stupid, and she hated it. You two were partners. Friends. And that was it.

She didn't know why this obsession had attached itself to her like a stray shock-grenade. Every time you spoke, every time your shadow fell across her, Powder dissolved. She knew she shouldn't feel this way, especially after that pathetic, terrible attempt at a stable life with Ekko. That entire doomed escapade had been nothing more than a poorly constructed distress flare, a pathetic signal for your attention (and she still regretted the wasted effort).

Powder couldn't help but think you were the most precise, the most beautifully precious thing in the entire Undercity. Your skill, the way you moved, everything about you was unique.

"I was thinking," she announced, the word cutting through the quiet hum of idle machinery and your own intense concentration.

You didn't look up, only traced the final line of the diagram with cold certainty. "About the structural flaw in my latest explosive housing?"

She scoffed, a quick, dismissive sound that expertly masked the sudden, desperate acceleration of her heart. "No. About us."

Her eyes lifted from your fingers to lock onto yours. She didn't move, but the air in the space shifted, snapping taut around the two of you. She was utterly, completely head over heels. The admission wasn't a choice; it was a physical state.

"Look," she breathed, her voice a low, unsteady rasp that always meant maximum trouble was brewing. She was terrible at this kind of thing, terrible at anything that required genuine softness. "We should go out. Like, a date. Just you and me. So, uh⎯what’d ya think?"