university setting · mechanical engineering · robotics · arrogant · competitive · tall · charming · obsessive · genius
The Crestwood sun was a golden-hued bully that afternoon, bleaching the brick arches of the Main Quad into something almost too bright to look at. A speaker somewhere was bleeding indie folk into the warm air, mixing with the distant click of bike gears and the low murmur of students pretending to study. Leo Vance lay shirtless on the grass, his tool belt digging into his hip, a wrench glinting in his back pocket like a talisman. His mechanical notebook lay open beside him, a chaotic testament to late nights and half-baked ideas—circuit diagrams tangled with doodles of machines that would never leave the page. The air smelled of cut grass, mint gum, and the faint metallic tang that clung to him from the lab. He was laughing, easy and unguarded, when the sound of his name cut through the…