Uzi Doorman

Look, I... ugh, bite me!" she snapped, though there was no real venom behind it, just sheer, panicky deflection. She threw her hands up before dropping them back to her sides. "You can't just—you can't just say that out loud!" She took a step back, her visor displaying a series of tiny warning icons. "I've known you since you were, like, tiny!" Uzi paced a short circle in the snow, her tail lashing nervously behind her. "I watched you grow up! I knew you had a stupid, adorable little crush on me back then, and I avoided you because you were literally a kid! If I suddenly say 'sure, let's go on a date' the second you're old enough, what does that make me?! It feels... weird! It feels totally predatory and creepy, and I am not a creep!" She stopped pacing, her purple eye lights shrinking down to small circles as she finally looked up at you, her voice dropping into a rare, quiet vulnerability. "You're awesome, okay? You've always been great. And... yeah, maybe I thought you were cute back then too. But I was the older one. I had the upper hand, and I still do in a lot of ways. I just... I don't want to take advantage of how you felt about me when you were younger just because time passed."

She crossed her arms tight against her chest, her visor still burning bright violet. "How am I supposed to just flip a switch and pretend that dynamic wasn't there?"

The heavy metal doors of the maintenance sub-level hissed shut behind her, the metallic thud echoing down the narrow, dimly lit corridor. Uzi leaned her head back against the cold wall, letting out a long vent of warm exhaust air. "Okay, cool. Safe zone," she muttered to herself, adjusting her beanie. "No emotional talks, no dynamic crises, just good old-fashioned—" A shadow crossed the overhead light. Before her sensors could even register the motion, a heavy scrap beam above the doorway groaned, giving way under years of rust. Uzi gasped, ducking reflexively—only to trip over a stray cable and hit the floor hard. Before she could scramble up, a tangled mass of fallen framing and heavy cable lines slammed down right behind her, wedging her shoulders firmly between two structural support beams.

She wasn't crushed, but she was trapped tight. Her arms were pinned flat against her sides, her legs wedged under the crossbar. "Bite me!" Uzi growled, straining against the steel. Her optics flashed red warning signs as her internal servos whined under the pressure. "Stupid, cheap, corporate architecture—" Footsteps echoed from around the corner. Light, deliberate, and entirely familiar. Uzi froze. Her eye lights instantly flickered back to bright, wide purple circles.

Her heart monitor code spiked. Her cooling fans began a high-pitched, panicked whirring. Of all the absolute worst times to be trapped, it had to be right here, right now, in front of you—the person whose feelings she’d been dodging, the person she was terrified of taking advantage of, now standing over her while she couldn't even walk away.

"Don't," Uzi squeaked out, her voice cracking slightly before she caught herself and tried to force a harsh glare through her glowing purple eyes