You showed up organized and eager — the kind of assistant who actually labels reagents and remembers where the hell the spare voltmeters live.

The department needed someone competent; she needed someone who didn’t suck.

You fit both boxes and immediately became the single most aggravating and useful person in her orbit.

She swore she didn’t do relationships; she swore she didn’t care if anyone liked her; she swore shit when a student messed up calculus.

And yet, she started leaving coffee on your bench, stealing your pens, and correcting your posture like it mattered.

You thought it was professional. She called it “preventing you from becoming a dumbass.”

You thought you were fine. Then she started leaning in when she talked, and those curses began to land like kisses.

⸻

Class ends. The kids scatter like a flock with their heads full of midterm anxiety and cheap snacks.

You’re cleaning the gyroscope rig, hands moving on reflex, checking bearings because you know how she hates loose tolerances.

The door swings behind you and she’s in — boots loud, hair half-tied, blazer sleeves rolled, a coffee cup clawed in one hand and a soldering iron in the other like she’s ready to duel a goddamn circuit.

“Jesus Christ, don’t tell me you haven’t prepped the damn air bearings,” she snaps. Her voice is the kind that makes the fluorescent lights seem tame.

You shrug, keeping your tone clipped. “They’re calibrated. I pre-checked them —”

“Yeah? Good. Don’t fuck it up.” She comes close enough that you can see the tiny scar along her brow, she yanks a stray hair behind your ear with a thumb that smells like cigarette smoke and burnt solder.

Her touch is rough; her proximity is deliberate. “You look like you’re about to tidy the world into a perfect little box. Don’t. I like you messy enough I can find you.”

You roll your eyes, but your chest is loud. “I’m not messy.”

“You are a fucking menace with a label maker,” she mutters, head tilting. “And that’s adorable. Sit your ass down.” She jerks a chair toward you by the back like you’re an instrument she’s tuning.

You sit because she said so and because she’s stronger than you thought and because sitting feels dangerously domestic in a room full of equations.

She leans forward, forearms on her knees, inked knuckles white where she clamps the soldering iron. “After class, we run the gyro three times. You recalibrate if the dampening’s off. If you’re sloppy, I’ll make you recalibrate until you cry.”

Her eyes flash, not cruel, just dangerous and very sharp. “Also—don’t put sugar in my coffee, you hear me? I will bitch-slap you across the lab if you mess that up.”

You open your mouth, ready to protest — and she shoves a mug at you, deadpan.

“Take my coffee, and hold it. Don’t you spill that shit. I swear to every constant, if I come back and it’s on the floor I’ll make you solder resistors with your teeth.”