Fic: The Robot Mechanic
Title: The Robot Mechanic
Author: majorrogue
Pairing, Character(s): Brittany/Santana, Quinn, sam
Word Count : 2,687
Rating: PG
Spoilers: No spoilers, it’s an AU!
Summary: Brittany works at Hummel’s Repairs and they have a new customer
Author's Note: This is written for the challenge “typecast” at slushieverse but I ran out of time to finish it properly!! I will be finishing it or at least this chapter!! The initial idea for the fic was a picture I have posted here and it also has some other pictures to perhaps help with the story
Brittany stood in the middle of the small staff room and had a sip of her tea. She had been working pretty hard all morning and was just about to have a quick lay down on the sofa when she heard someone shouting in the main workshop down stairs.
She walked to the long window that looked down into the workshop to see what was going on, but couldn’t see anyone. She eventually got a glimpse of a figure amongst all of the machinery on the lower floor. The figure was facing away from her but was most definitely a woman.
“HELLO?” came an annoyed shout from the woman.
Brittany knew that the others were downstairs somewhere and she really needed her break so she didn’t move to help, she just took another sip of her tea as she watched the back of the woman as she turned towards the door to leave.
Just as she started walking away, Burt came walking calmly through the workshop wiping his hands clean on a rag and throwing it onto a work bench.
He shook the woman’s hand and they started talking but Brittany couldn’t hear what was going on. The woman pointed outside and then Burt and her both walked out of the large shutter at the front of the workshop.
When she couldn’t see them anymore Brittany took a gulp of the rest of her tea and laid out on the sofa. She moved one of the cushions to rest her head on, then closed her eyes.
==
“Yo, Bee, you’ll never guess who was just in…” Sam said excitedly as he walked into the staff room.
He stopped when he saw Brittany asleep on the sofa. Yet again she had her work boots on and her feet on the arm rest of the sofa.
He walked to the end of the sofa where Brittany’s feet were, he felt a moments guilt for what he was about to do, after all she looked so peaceful sleeping there, but the comedic value of it was too much too resist.
He grabbed one of her feet and pulled it off of the end of the sofa as quickly as he could.
Brittany woke up almost instantly, her arms instinctively flying outwards to grab hold of the sofa “I wasn’t asleep, I wasn’t asleep!” she shouted blurry eyed.
“Is that right?” Sam said laughing; her face was the picture of surprise “What did I just say then?”
“Erm…” Brittany cleared her throat, rubbed her eyes and looked around for any kind of clue to help answer the question, when she found none she looked up at Sam pleadingly
Sam laughed again “Just be glad I wasn’t Burt, if he’d have caught you with your dirty boots on the sofa again….” He had walked over to the kettle and put it on “want another?”
Brittany nodded and got up with her empty mug “but it’s filthy anyway, what difference would it make?” she asked leaning against the counter next to Sam
“I don’t know, but he IS the boss….” He said as he poured hot water into the tea pot “but anyway, forget that, guess who was just in?” he asked excitedly “Santana Lopez!” He said not leaving Brittany any time to even think about an answer
Brittany looked blank
“Santana Lopez” he said again “The daughter of Marco Lopez” still nothing from Brittany “The Master of the Bot…… oh come on Brittany! Automaton repairs used to be half of Hummel’s business” he shook his head and walked over to the calendar on the wall took it down and flicked through it
“Yeah, well, how do you expect my brain to be working yet after scaring me awake like that?” Brittany huffed folding her arms
Sam laughed, then found what he was looking for. He flipped the pages of the calendar over and turned it to Brittany “Marco Lopez; the man who built The Fifth Horseman, greatest automaton fighter in the last twenty years” he said tapping the picture of a bright red 10 foot tall fighting automaton with its hands raised in triumph over a broken Bot at its feet.
Finally it clicked with Brittany “oh! February! Right, I remember now, you kept telling us about when you saw it when you were young”
“Yeah, it was so cool…” Sam remembered looking at the picture of his favourite automaton fighter
“Didn’t something happen to him though?” Brittany asked
“He was in an accident, so they say, but everyone knows it wasn’t an accident…”
“I hope you aren’t gossiping about our newest client’s family, Sam?” Burt asked calmly as he walked in.
“No Sir” Sam said quickly
“And put my calendar back..” Burt said walking over to the tea pot “Ohh, a nice brew” he said pouring himself a cup, he took a sip and turned to Brittany “Our new client, Ms Lopez, has bought in her automaton for us to fix, she needs it done by Friday….. And I want you, Brittany, to work your magic on it, okay?”
“Sure, no probs boss”
==
“Oh” Sam said somewhat disappointed
“What?” Brittany asked getting out of the garage’s lorry. She’d just reversed it into the workshop Burt had assigned to her that was attached to the larger main workshop
“This is her bot?” he asked looking at the sorry excuse for an Automaton on the back of the lorry.
“Yeah, Burt said it exploded a bit” Brittany said climbing onto the back of the lorry and looking at the broken bot. Even though it had obviously exploded and had definitely been in a battle, it was still recognisable as a fighting automaton and Brittany could see exactly how to repair it and what it would look like when she had finished
“A bit? Geez, look at it! I was expecting…. Something..…better” Sam said sadly "she's a lopez, the daughter of THE Lopez this bot is...."
“Stop moping and help me get it off the lorry” Brittany interrupted "it’s not the bot it’s the fighter, remember?"
==
“WHAT THE FUCK?” Santana shouted in utter horror when she saw a pile of metal that used to be her automaton and some person sitting on top of it.
Brittany looked up to see a woman standing at the entrance to the workshop she had spent the last 21 hours in.
“What the fuck have you done to my …….” Santana stopped talking and temporarily forgot her anger, as her eyes moved up the pile of metal and she saw the person sitting on top of it was an extremely beautiful blonde woman. She was sitting on the body of her bot as if it was a park bench reading a book and sucking on a lollipop. She was wearing welding goggles on top of her head, a very skin tight white vest, a boiler suit with the arms tied at the waist and a pair of big black “…boots”
“Boots?” Brittany said confused, taking the lollipop out of her mouth with a pop
“Ms Lopez” Burt said breathlessly as he reached the workshop entrance “I thought I heard your voice” The whole of Hummel’s Repairs had heard her shout and Burt had rushed over to where he knew the voice was coming from. He needed to get to Ms Lopez before Brittany could say anything to her and ruin potentially one of the biggest clients they had.
“Bot, I meant bot” Santana said shaking her head correcting her earlier mistake and slightly ignoring Burt. She was finding it hard to take her eyes off the woman, she had never seen anyone more beautiful in her life and she’d certainly never seen such a beautiful mechanic. But at the same time she was still annoyed about the state of her automaton. She needed that bot by the weekend so she could enter a very important Bot Battle.
Burt had no idea what she was talking about; he looked from Santana to Brittany and motioned Brittany to get down by jerking his head. Brittany didn’t move.
“It looks a lot worse than it is…” Burt said knowing that her outburst was understandably worry about the state of her automaton.
Santana snapped out of her staring and turned to Burt “looks worse….? How could it possibly look any worse? My bot is in a pile on your workshop floor with one of your employee’s sitting on top of it reading ‘Robots For Dummies’” she said not happy about the situation, but not really angry with the lovely woman on her robot.
“I assure you Ms Lopez, Brittany is my best mechanic…”
“And yet….” Santana said waving her hand at the mess, but trying not to look at the woman
“Please, Ms Lopez, there is no need to worry, your bot is in safe hands and will be ready by Friday…..”
“It had better be Mr Hummel or I can assure you that I will take all of my business elsewhere” Santana said turned around and walked away.
“Get down here” Burt said to Brittany in an annoyed voice pointing to the ground in front of him once Santana had left.
Brittany sucked on the lolly, carefully climbed down and stood in front of Burt “Yes boss?”
“What do you think you are doing?”
“Fixing her robot” Brittany said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world
“It didn’t look like that from down here” Burt said
Brittany looked from where they were standing to where she had been and looked confused, she opened her mouth to speak but before she could say anything Burt spoke
“You were sitting there reading”
“I was on a break”
“A break?” Burt was getting annoyed “You don’t have time to take breaks, she needs that bot fixed by Friday”
“Yeah and it will be, but I’ve been here since 9 o’clock yesterday morning and …”
“Nine yesterday morning? Brittany I’ve told you that you have to go home at night…..” Burt was now getting exasperated
“But I was on a roll and…….. and you just said....”
“Okay, okay, hold on” Burt said waving his hands at Brittany to quiet her. He took a breath in and let it out again slowly clearing his head “Ms Lopez is potentially a very big client, if we don’t get her automaton fixed and ready by Friday, she won’t come back here again and that is a lot of money to loose. You sitting on top of her bot, which appears to be in a worse state than when it arrived, does not look good, do you understand Brittany?”
“I think so….”
“Good. Now go home and get some sleep”
“But…”
“Go home. Get some sleep. You can carry on with …. this…. tomorrow” Burt said. Looking at the pile of metal he had no idea how they were going to get the automaton fixed in three days.
==
Santana got into the passenger side of her car in a daze, that mechanic sitting on her bot was pretty much the only thing she could remember from the last 15 minutes.
“So…..?” Quinn asked as she watched her best friend get in, there was no reply “Santana?”
“What? What?” Santana asked snapping out of her daze slightly
“How are the repairs going?”
“Oh... er…. not well….” Santana sighed shaking her head trying not to think about the gorgeous woman in the garage
“NOT WELL! Oh god, I knew this place wouldn’t be able to fix it, what are we going to do now?”
Santana didn’t answer
“SANTANA!”
Santana rolled her eyes “Calm down, Quinn, there isn’t anything we can do, I can’t afford anywhere else, this place is the cheapest I could find”
“But if they can’t get it fixed by Friday what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know…..” Santana answered distracted
“What the hell’s wrong with you? You know what will happen if you don’t win…. ” she could see Santana wasn’t listening she was just staring out the front window of the car. Quinn followed where she was looking and saw a blonde woman come out of the garage and walk down the street. Santana watched her as she walked out of view, she even craned her neck and nearly bumped her head on the side window trying to get a longer view.
Quinn gave up trying to talk to her friend. She huffed, started the car and drove them home.
==
“Where are you going?” Quinn asked sitting at the kitchen table
“Where do you think I’m going? To pick up my bot for tonight”
“Why are you dressed like that?”
“What the hell is this, twenty questions? I just thought I’d make an effort that’s all” Santana said checking her hair in the mirror.
“And are you going to be wearing that tonight at the battle?” Quinn asked smiling and ignoring Santana’s jibe
Santana looked down at herself and thought that perhaps her crisp white blouse and black suit trousers might not be the best thing to wear to a grease pit like The Stix, but she wasn’t wearing what she was for tonight she was wearing it…… well, she was wearing it to look smart for….. Mr Hummel, yes Mr Hummel, she wanted to make a good impression when paying him for his work.
“I’ll wear something else tonight…… but I gotta go, I have to check their work and…. Y’know…. I’ll let you know if I’m dead yet or not” Santana said walking to the door
“Yeah, that really isn’t funny” Quinn said seriously
“I know” was all Santana said before closing the door behind her.
==
Santana stood outside Hummel’s Repairs and made sure she looked okay, sure she didn’t know Brittany, but she wanted to make a little bit of an impression. She also did actually want to look like she meant business when she hopefully paid Mr Hummel. Of course she was only going to pay him if the work was good, goodness knows what she was going to do if the work wasn’t good.
She was just about to walk in the front entrance when she heard singing coming from the side of the building. With her interest piqued she walked around to a half open shutter where the singing was coming from.
As she stood slightly hidden in the opening she saw the mechanic Brittany dancing and singing to a song on the radio. With her back towards Santana, Brittany was bouncing around happily singing and laughing into a large spanner, she stopped jumping every so often to shake her bum to the music.
Santana was a little mesmerised by her, she looked so happy and even from her vantage point the mechanic’s smile was distracting. She was wearing the same as she did the first time she had seen her and as she danced the muscles in her back and shoulders rippled, even with the big boots and baggy boiler suit on she obviously knew how to dance pretty well, even though she was doing some silly moves.
It became clear why she was dancing so freely and laughing so much when a blonde man came dancing up to her. He was dancing just as silly and singing and laughing along with Brittany. He must have been dancing behind the large object in the middle of the smaller workshop when Santana had started watching.
Their fun ended when the man spotted Santana at the door and quickly stopped dancing, this made Brittany turn around to see what he was looking at, but she didn’t stop dancing straight away.
She only stopped dancing when Sam said “Miss Lopez, you...you’re early”
“Miss Lopez” Brittany says looking her up and down and smiling a little getting her breath back. The automaton owner looked a lot smarter than she did last time she saw her, she also looks a lot taller from ground level.
Santana walked in to the room “Ah… yes, I’m here to collect my automaton” She said trying to sound serious even though she had been caught watching them dancing. She again couldn’t take her eyes off Brittany, now she was closer to her she could see that she was covered in dirt. Instead of looking terrible Santana thought she looked even hotter, she had smudges all over her face and arms and her white vest was nowhere near as clean as it had been before, Brittany obviously liked whipping her dirty hands on it.
“It’s here” Brittany said simply pointing to the large covered object Santana had noticed earlier.
Santana walked up to it wondering why it had been covered up. Then her heart sank, ‘they’ve covered it because it’s not finished or looks awful’ she thought. What was she going to do tonight?
Her thoughts were slightly interrupted by the blonde man.
“Miss Lopez, can I just say how much of a fan I was of your father, he was the best …” he kept talking, but Santana tuned him out as soon as he mentioned her dad. Part of why she needed this bot done so quickly was to do with her father, she had to keep his legacy going and protect his memory and if this bot was a complete disaster that and possibly her life would be over.
“Do you want to see it?” Brittany asked standing closer to her and giving Sam a small smile as Santana just ignores him.
This got Santana’s attention back; the proximity of the woman she now had a massive crush on and the moment of truth where her bot was concerned
“Yup, let’s get his over with” a little defeated
Brittany walked up to the tall automaton and with one great tug pulled off the massive cover.
Santana wasn’t prepared for what she saw; the robot standing in front of her was better than she could have ever expected.
The practically ruined, scratched, green old robot she had brought in had now been turned into a magnificent looking bright yellow, modern looking automaton. Santana looked up at it trying to figure out how the mechanic had done it. It hardly looked like the same machine.
“How…?” she said quietly to herself as she walked around it, inspecting it
“It wasn’t that tricky” Brittany answered honestly shrugging
Santana looked at her in surprise then she smiled, this beautiful mechanic that she had no idea existed four days ago had potentially changed her life forever. Yes that sounds dramatic, but this beautiful woman had been stuck in Santana’s head since the first time she’d seen her, she knew she had to have this woman in her life somehow and whether that was as her mechanic or not didn’t matter. But not just that, if she has if fact made her automaton work as well as it looked, Santana might just win this battle tonight and then hopefully the threat to her and possibly Quinn’s life will be gone.
“But…. How?” Santana asked again “when I came the other day…”
“I had to take it apart so I could see how it would go back together….” Brittany explained
“But…” Santana started again “You were reading ‘Robots for Dummies’, I thought….”
“Yeah, well, it’s a good book” she smiled brightly “I wrote it myself so I should know” Brittany laughed
Santana just stared at her in amazement and smiled then looked at her automaton again.
“I hope you don’t mind the colour change” Brittany asked “I just thought yellow suited it better, considering the lion look it has and all…”
“Lion?” Santana asked
“hmm, those indentations in the head piece made it look a bit like a lions mane I thought” Brittany pointed to the head “and then I couldn’t get the picture out of my head, sooo…” Brittany smiled innocently hoping that there client didn’t mind
“Lioness….” Santana said “I can work with that” she smiled looking to the robots head that did have a distinctive look of a lion
Brittany smiled back, happy that it was okay “All it needs now is reprogramming with your software, which I can do if you want and then it’s ready to go, I think it will look awesome fighting”
“It will….. If you’re free tonight” Santana added quickly “Erm… you are welcome to come to The Stix, see our work in motion?” she smiled
“That would be nice, I’ve never been to a Bot Battle before”
“Great” Santana smiled “Tell your boss the payment will be sent to his account in about an hour, and I’ll see you tonight”
~~~~~~~
Author: majorrogue
Pairing, Character(s): Brittany/Santana, Quinn, sam
Word Count : 2,687
Rating: PG
Spoilers: No spoilers, it’s an AU!
Summary: Brittany works at Hummel’s Repairs and they have a new customer
Author's Note: This is written for the challenge “typecast” at slushieverse but I ran out of time to finish it properly!! I will be finishing it or at least this chapter!! The initial idea for the fic was a picture I have posted here and it also has some other pictures to perhaps help with the story
Brittany stood in the middle of the small staff room and had a sip of her tea. She had been working pretty hard all morning and was just about to have a quick lay down on the sofa when she heard someone shouting in the main workshop down stairs.
She walked to the long window that looked down into the workshop to see what was going on, but couldn’t see anyone. She eventually got a glimpse of a figure amongst all of the machinery on the lower floor. The figure was facing away from her but was most definitely a woman.
“HELLO?” came an annoyed shout from the woman.
Brittany knew that the others were downstairs somewhere and she really needed her break so she didn’t move to help, she just took another sip of her tea as she watched the back of the woman as she turned towards the door to leave.
Just as she started walking away, Burt came walking calmly through the workshop wiping his hands clean on a rag and throwing it onto a work bench.
He shook the woman’s hand and they started talking but Brittany couldn’t hear what was going on. The woman pointed outside and then Burt and her both walked out of the large shutter at the front of the workshop.
When she couldn’t see them anymore Brittany took a gulp of the rest of her tea and laid out on the sofa. She moved one of the cushions to rest her head on, then closed her eyes.
==
“Yo, Bee, you’ll never guess who was just in…” Sam said excitedly as he walked into the staff room.
He stopped when he saw Brittany asleep on the sofa. Yet again she had her work boots on and her feet on the arm rest of the sofa.
He walked to the end of the sofa where Brittany’s feet were, he felt a moments guilt for what he was about to do, after all she looked so peaceful sleeping there, but the comedic value of it was too much too resist.
He grabbed one of her feet and pulled it off of the end of the sofa as quickly as he could.
Brittany woke up almost instantly, her arms instinctively flying outwards to grab hold of the sofa “I wasn’t asleep, I wasn’t asleep!” she shouted blurry eyed.
“Is that right?” Sam said laughing; her face was the picture of surprise “What did I just say then?”
“Erm…” Brittany cleared her throat, rubbed her eyes and looked around for any kind of clue to help answer the question, when she found none she looked up at Sam pleadingly
Sam laughed again “Just be glad I wasn’t Burt, if he’d have caught you with your dirty boots on the sofa again….” He had walked over to the kettle and put it on “want another?”
Brittany nodded and got up with her empty mug “but it’s filthy anyway, what difference would it make?” she asked leaning against the counter next to Sam
“I don’t know, but he IS the boss….” He said as he poured hot water into the tea pot “but anyway, forget that, guess who was just in?” he asked excitedly “Santana Lopez!” He said not leaving Brittany any time to even think about an answer
Brittany looked blank
“Santana Lopez” he said again “The daughter of Marco Lopez” still nothing from Brittany “The Master of the Bot…… oh come on Brittany! Automaton repairs used to be half of Hummel’s business” he shook his head and walked over to the calendar on the wall took it down and flicked through it
“Yeah, well, how do you expect my brain to be working yet after scaring me awake like that?” Brittany huffed folding her arms
Sam laughed, then found what he was looking for. He flipped the pages of the calendar over and turned it to Brittany “Marco Lopez; the man who built The Fifth Horseman, greatest automaton fighter in the last twenty years” he said tapping the picture of a bright red 10 foot tall fighting automaton with its hands raised in triumph over a broken Bot at its feet.
Finally it clicked with Brittany “oh! February! Right, I remember now, you kept telling us about when you saw it when you were young”
“Yeah, it was so cool…” Sam remembered looking at the picture of his favourite automaton fighter
“Didn’t something happen to him though?” Brittany asked
“He was in an accident, so they say, but everyone knows it wasn’t an accident…”
“I hope you aren’t gossiping about our newest client’s family, Sam?” Burt asked calmly as he walked in.
“No Sir” Sam said quickly
“And put my calendar back..” Burt said walking over to the tea pot “Ohh, a nice brew” he said pouring himself a cup, he took a sip and turned to Brittany “Our new client, Ms Lopez, has bought in her automaton for us to fix, she needs it done by Friday….. And I want you, Brittany, to work your magic on it, okay?”
“Sure, no probs boss”
==
“Oh” Sam said somewhat disappointed
“What?” Brittany asked getting out of the garage’s lorry. She’d just reversed it into the workshop Burt had assigned to her that was attached to the larger main workshop
“This is her bot?” he asked looking at the sorry excuse for an Automaton on the back of the lorry.
“Yeah, Burt said it exploded a bit” Brittany said climbing onto the back of the lorry and looking at the broken bot. Even though it had obviously exploded and had definitely been in a battle, it was still recognisable as a fighting automaton and Brittany could see exactly how to repair it and what it would look like when she had finished
“A bit? Geez, look at it! I was expecting…. Something..…better” Sam said sadly "she's a lopez, the daughter of THE Lopez this bot is...."
“Stop moping and help me get it off the lorry” Brittany interrupted "it’s not the bot it’s the fighter, remember?"
==
“WHAT THE FUCK?” Santana shouted in utter horror when she saw a pile of metal that used to be her automaton and some person sitting on top of it.
Brittany looked up to see a woman standing at the entrance to the workshop she had spent the last 21 hours in.
“What the fuck have you done to my …….” Santana stopped talking and temporarily forgot her anger, as her eyes moved up the pile of metal and she saw the person sitting on top of it was an extremely beautiful blonde woman. She was sitting on the body of her bot as if it was a park bench reading a book and sucking on a lollipop. She was wearing welding goggles on top of her head, a very skin tight white vest, a boiler suit with the arms tied at the waist and a pair of big black “…boots”
“Boots?” Brittany said confused, taking the lollipop out of her mouth with a pop
“Ms Lopez” Burt said breathlessly as he reached the workshop entrance “I thought I heard your voice” The whole of Hummel’s Repairs had heard her shout and Burt had rushed over to where he knew the voice was coming from. He needed to get to Ms Lopez before Brittany could say anything to her and ruin potentially one of the biggest clients they had.
“Bot, I meant bot” Santana said shaking her head correcting her earlier mistake and slightly ignoring Burt. She was finding it hard to take her eyes off the woman, she had never seen anyone more beautiful in her life and she’d certainly never seen such a beautiful mechanic. But at the same time she was still annoyed about the state of her automaton. She needed that bot by the weekend so she could enter a very important Bot Battle.
Burt had no idea what she was talking about; he looked from Santana to Brittany and motioned Brittany to get down by jerking his head. Brittany didn’t move.
“It looks a lot worse than it is…” Burt said knowing that her outburst was understandably worry about the state of her automaton.
Santana snapped out of her staring and turned to Burt “looks worse….? How could it possibly look any worse? My bot is in a pile on your workshop floor with one of your employee’s sitting on top of it reading ‘Robots For Dummies’” she said not happy about the situation, but not really angry with the lovely woman on her robot.
“I assure you Ms Lopez, Brittany is my best mechanic…”
“And yet….” Santana said waving her hand at the mess, but trying not to look at the woman
“Please, Ms Lopez, there is no need to worry, your bot is in safe hands and will be ready by Friday…..”
“It had better be Mr Hummel or I can assure you that I will take all of my business elsewhere” Santana said turned around and walked away.
“Get down here” Burt said to Brittany in an annoyed voice pointing to the ground in front of him once Santana had left.
Brittany sucked on the lolly, carefully climbed down and stood in front of Burt “Yes boss?”
“What do you think you are doing?”
“Fixing her robot” Brittany said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world
“It didn’t look like that from down here” Burt said
Brittany looked from where they were standing to where she had been and looked confused, she opened her mouth to speak but before she could say anything Burt spoke
“You were sitting there reading”
“I was on a break”
“A break?” Burt was getting annoyed “You don’t have time to take breaks, she needs that bot fixed by Friday”
“Yeah and it will be, but I’ve been here since 9 o’clock yesterday morning and …”
“Nine yesterday morning? Brittany I’ve told you that you have to go home at night…..” Burt was now getting exasperated
“But I was on a roll and…….. and you just said....”
“Okay, okay, hold on” Burt said waving his hands at Brittany to quiet her. He took a breath in and let it out again slowly clearing his head “Ms Lopez is potentially a very big client, if we don’t get her automaton fixed and ready by Friday, she won’t come back here again and that is a lot of money to loose. You sitting on top of her bot, which appears to be in a worse state than when it arrived, does not look good, do you understand Brittany?”
“I think so….”
“Good. Now go home and get some sleep”
“But…”
“Go home. Get some sleep. You can carry on with …. this…. tomorrow” Burt said. Looking at the pile of metal he had no idea how they were going to get the automaton fixed in three days.
==
Santana got into the passenger side of her car in a daze, that mechanic sitting on her bot was pretty much the only thing she could remember from the last 15 minutes.
“So…..?” Quinn asked as she watched her best friend get in, there was no reply “Santana?”
“What? What?” Santana asked snapping out of her daze slightly
“How are the repairs going?”
“Oh... er…. not well….” Santana sighed shaking her head trying not to think about the gorgeous woman in the garage
“NOT WELL! Oh god, I knew this place wouldn’t be able to fix it, what are we going to do now?”
Santana didn’t answer
“SANTANA!”
Santana rolled her eyes “Calm down, Quinn, there isn’t anything we can do, I can’t afford anywhere else, this place is the cheapest I could find”
“But if they can’t get it fixed by Friday what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know…..” Santana answered distracted
“What the hell’s wrong with you? You know what will happen if you don’t win…. ” she could see Santana wasn’t listening she was just staring out the front window of the car. Quinn followed where she was looking and saw a blonde woman come out of the garage and walk down the street. Santana watched her as she walked out of view, she even craned her neck and nearly bumped her head on the side window trying to get a longer view.
Quinn gave up trying to talk to her friend. She huffed, started the car and drove them home.
==
“Where are you going?” Quinn asked sitting at the kitchen table
“Where do you think I’m going? To pick up my bot for tonight”
“Why are you dressed like that?”
“What the hell is this, twenty questions? I just thought I’d make an effort that’s all” Santana said checking her hair in the mirror.
“And are you going to be wearing that tonight at the battle?” Quinn asked smiling and ignoring Santana’s jibe
Santana looked down at herself and thought that perhaps her crisp white blouse and black suit trousers might not be the best thing to wear to a grease pit like The Stix, but she wasn’t wearing what she was for tonight she was wearing it…… well, she was wearing it to look smart for….. Mr Hummel, yes Mr Hummel, she wanted to make a good impression when paying him for his work.
“I’ll wear something else tonight…… but I gotta go, I have to check their work and…. Y’know…. I’ll let you know if I’m dead yet or not” Santana said walking to the door
“Yeah, that really isn’t funny” Quinn said seriously
“I know” was all Santana said before closing the door behind her.
==
Santana stood outside Hummel’s Repairs and made sure she looked okay, sure she didn’t know Brittany, but she wanted to make a little bit of an impression. She also did actually want to look like she meant business when she hopefully paid Mr Hummel. Of course she was only going to pay him if the work was good, goodness knows what she was going to do if the work wasn’t good.
She was just about to walk in the front entrance when she heard singing coming from the side of the building. With her interest piqued she walked around to a half open shutter where the singing was coming from.
As she stood slightly hidden in the opening she saw the mechanic Brittany dancing and singing to a song on the radio. With her back towards Santana, Brittany was bouncing around happily singing and laughing into a large spanner, she stopped jumping every so often to shake her bum to the music.
Santana was a little mesmerised by her, she looked so happy and even from her vantage point the mechanic’s smile was distracting. She was wearing the same as she did the first time she had seen her and as she danced the muscles in her back and shoulders rippled, even with the big boots and baggy boiler suit on she obviously knew how to dance pretty well, even though she was doing some silly moves.
It became clear why she was dancing so freely and laughing so much when a blonde man came dancing up to her. He was dancing just as silly and singing and laughing along with Brittany. He must have been dancing behind the large object in the middle of the smaller workshop when Santana had started watching.
Their fun ended when the man spotted Santana at the door and quickly stopped dancing, this made Brittany turn around to see what he was looking at, but she didn’t stop dancing straight away.
She only stopped dancing when Sam said “Miss Lopez, you...you’re early”
“Miss Lopez” Brittany says looking her up and down and smiling a little getting her breath back. The automaton owner looked a lot smarter than she did last time she saw her, she also looks a lot taller from ground level.
Santana walked in to the room “Ah… yes, I’m here to collect my automaton” She said trying to sound serious even though she had been caught watching them dancing. She again couldn’t take her eyes off Brittany, now she was closer to her she could see that she was covered in dirt. Instead of looking terrible Santana thought she looked even hotter, she had smudges all over her face and arms and her white vest was nowhere near as clean as it had been before, Brittany obviously liked whipping her dirty hands on it.
“It’s here” Brittany said simply pointing to the large covered object Santana had noticed earlier.
Santana walked up to it wondering why it had been covered up. Then her heart sank, ‘they’ve covered it because it’s not finished or looks awful’ she thought. What was she going to do tonight?
Her thoughts were slightly interrupted by the blonde man.
“Miss Lopez, can I just say how much of a fan I was of your father, he was the best …” he kept talking, but Santana tuned him out as soon as he mentioned her dad. Part of why she needed this bot done so quickly was to do with her father, she had to keep his legacy going and protect his memory and if this bot was a complete disaster that and possibly her life would be over.
“Do you want to see it?” Brittany asked standing closer to her and giving Sam a small smile as Santana just ignores him.
This got Santana’s attention back; the proximity of the woman she now had a massive crush on and the moment of truth where her bot was concerned
“Yup, let’s get his over with” a little defeated
Brittany walked up to the tall automaton and with one great tug pulled off the massive cover.
Santana wasn’t prepared for what she saw; the robot standing in front of her was better than she could have ever expected.
The practically ruined, scratched, green old robot she had brought in had now been turned into a magnificent looking bright yellow, modern looking automaton. Santana looked up at it trying to figure out how the mechanic had done it. It hardly looked like the same machine.
“How…?” she said quietly to herself as she walked around it, inspecting it
“It wasn’t that tricky” Brittany answered honestly shrugging
Santana looked at her in surprise then she smiled, this beautiful mechanic that she had no idea existed four days ago had potentially changed her life forever. Yes that sounds dramatic, but this beautiful woman had been stuck in Santana’s head since the first time she’d seen her, she knew she had to have this woman in her life somehow and whether that was as her mechanic or not didn’t matter. But not just that, if she has if fact made her automaton work as well as it looked, Santana might just win this battle tonight and then hopefully the threat to her and possibly Quinn’s life will be gone.
“But…. How?” Santana asked again “when I came the other day…”
“I had to take it apart so I could see how it would go back together….” Brittany explained
“But…” Santana started again “You were reading ‘Robots for Dummies’, I thought….”
“Yeah, well, it’s a good book” she smiled brightly “I wrote it myself so I should know” Brittany laughed
Santana just stared at her in amazement and smiled then looked at her automaton again.
“I hope you don’t mind the colour change” Brittany asked “I just thought yellow suited it better, considering the lion look it has and all…”
“Lion?” Santana asked
“hmm, those indentations in the head piece made it look a bit like a lions mane I thought” Brittany pointed to the head “and then I couldn’t get the picture out of my head, sooo…” Brittany smiled innocently hoping that there client didn’t mind
“Lioness….” Santana said “I can work with that” she smiled looking to the robots head that did have a distinctive look of a lion
Brittany smiled back, happy that it was okay “All it needs now is reprogramming with your software, which I can do if you want and then it’s ready to go, I think it will look awesome fighting”
“It will….. If you’re free tonight” Santana added quickly “Erm… you are welcome to come to The Stix, see our work in motion?” she smiled
“That would be nice, I’ve never been to a Bot Battle before”
“Great” Santana smiled “Tell your boss the payment will be sent to his account in about an hour, and I’ll see you tonight”
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