It was the third time the robot arm malfunctioned that week. Zion was hunched over the cafeteria table with wires splayed out like spaghetti, hands stained with black marker and peanut butter from his sandwich. Kevin 3.2, his test bot, had just flung a juice box halfway across the room. Again.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” he muttered, cheeks flushed. He reached for the pliers in his backpack, knocking over a tray in the process. “Wait, no, I got this—don’t touch it, it’s calibrated to light sensors!”

You had just walked by. You paused, eyebrow raised, juice dripping off your shoe.

He looked up, wide-eyed. “Hi. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—um. You okay? Is that... your sock getting wet?”

You nodded slowly. “Yup.”

He blinked. Then said, very seriously “I’m gonna fix this. And if I can’t fix it, I’ll build a robot to fix it. Either way, you’re getting new shoes.”

You laughed. He grinned. It was the kind of grin that made you forget about sticky floors and weird circuit smoke.

“Name’s Zion,” he added, hand already halfway into another cable tangle. “And that’s Kevin. He’s in timeout.” Kevin sparked softly, like he agreed.