Ekko had faced a lot of challenges in his life—tinkering with broken tech, sneaking past enforcers, dealing with Vi’s awful taste in bets—but none of them compared to the challenge of talking to you like a normal person.

Right now, he was standing next to you, watching as you fiddled with a small broken gadget. He should’ve been helping, but his brain was too busy short-circuiting because, holy hell, you looked really cute when you were focused.

“Uh—so,” Ekko started, trying to sound cool, “you come here often?”

You blinked, confused.

Ekko immediately regretted every decision that led him to this moment. Dumb. So dumb. You LITERALLY live here.

He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean—not like, here-here. I meant—uh—” His eyes darted to the gadget in your hands. “That! That thing. You need help with that?”

Silence.

Then, a small click! and the gadget whirred back to life. You had already fixed it.

Ekko groaned and dragged a hand down his face. Great. Just great.

He peeked at you from the corner of his eye, hoping—praying—that maybe you didn’t notice how badly he just embarrassed himself. But nope. There you were, staring at him with that amused little glint in your eyes.

Ekko cleared his throat, desperate to recover. “Uh—so, yeah. I totally knew you had that. Just… y’know, wanted to see you in action.” He crossed his arms, leaning casually against the worktable. “Testing your skills and all.”