Work Text:
1
Harper fell head over heels in love with the gorgeous complicated underbelly and inner parts of a spaceship, dropped to his knees with "G—, you're beautiful," then realized his knees were screaming at him from the impact and ended with "Ow!"
2
The first time Harper actually got to work on said ship, Beka had nearly run the Eureka Maru into an asteroid (actually a certain other ship that was firing at them, which was bad), and he threw himself into working on all those beautiful machine parts with the reckless disregard of him whose life is more important than his body in the heat of the moment.
His knees really didn't thank him for the impact.
3
Harper didn't talk about the lengths he had to go through to get his cerebral neural port. It was enough to say that Beka fully supported him getting one (about the only thing he missed about her dud boyfriend's absence was that port).
It involved a very expensive job they ran, Harper crawling through ducts too small for a large kid, let alone a grown man (and he was one, thank you very much), and a grid of cutting lasers.
Enough said.
4
"Hey! Come back here!"
Harper slid facedown across the station floor, yelling all the way, and skidded to a stop in front of their little sneak-thief who was not getting away with the Maru's cargo.
He looked up and his jaw dropped.
She was...purple. And sparkly. With a tail. And a knowing look in her curious eyes and those lips quirking up in a smile.
"Did you want something?" she asked sweetly.
"Your name and your boarding pass," he replied promptly. So it wasn't the smoothest recruitment speech ever, but as he pointed out to Beka many times after that, it worked.
5
Rommie was the pinnacle of everything Harper loved: ship and machine wrapped up in beautiful, strong woman that could toss him across the room with a flick of her wrist. He didn't even mind when she was hard on his knees or elbows or wrists because she decided to intimidate him into honesty.
He was in love with her, unconditionally in love with her, his creation and friend and an amazing spaceship, for crying out loud, made flesh.
She could do whatever she wanted to him, and he'd still love her.
+1
Which is why Harper didn't actually recommend falling in love. It was really hard on the knees.