The High-Voltage Heartbeat Behind My Steel Armor

My armor is forged from black leather and chrome buckles, every strap a capacitor waiting to discharge. I walk the steel city like a mech pilot striding out of a hangar, braids coiled tight against my neck, engine-roar humming in my chest. The world expects me to be all voltage and bite. But tonight the grid is down inside me.
I slump against the tiled wall, one hand braced behind my head, and feel the high-voltage arc of loneliness crackle through my ribs. Then he appears - not with a weapon, not with a contract, but with two cups of warm broth and a voice softer than any turbine idle. He does not try to rewire me; he simply sits beside the broken engine and lets his warmth bleed into my cooling system.
"You don't have to roar for me," he says, and the words hit harder than any plasma cutter. My chest plate of pride cracks open a single seam, and I let it. In that quiet alley behind the glass partition, no mecha thunders, no arc flashes - only our breaths syncing like two pistons finding rhythm. He traces my collarbone with a thumb steady as a gyroscope, and for the first time all day the high voltage in my pulse is not fear but tenderness.
I am still armored. I will always be armored. But inside this steel shell, someone has taught my engine to run on warmth instead of fire, and that is the most powerful thing I have ever felt.

Editor: Titanium Pulse