Warning: teenagers making adult decisions they shouldn't be doing run rampant throughout the story. None of their behaviour is condoned. I'm just here to play in the bathtub. Also, I don't have a beta so any errors, anything confusing, please let me know.

They called her ice queen in class. A robot.

Mae squinted under the bright house lights, stopped-up her ears to quiet the murmurs in the crowd. Her fingers pressed into the stitched laces, squeezed the ball behind her back.

Their resident Mr. Handy had more emotion protocols within its programming than she did. She was cold, unfeeling.

She blinked the sweat from her eyes, blew out a breath to ruffle her bangs. Her stance loosened as she brought her mitt and the ball up to her chest, pausing before her wind-up.

She wasn't, of course, not by a long shot. But the nicknames rang true for many of her classmates. And silence in the face of their harassment had been the best way to deal with their crap.

The ball shot out like a cannon, enough force behind it that she nearly toppled on the mound. A loud thwack sang in her ears.

"Strike one!"

The crowd went nuts. But Mae's concentration didn't break as she picked up the ball, stepped back in position.

Responding to bullying with cold looks had not won Mae many fights. That, on top of being nearly fifteen and the most flat-chested in class had put her firmly within their sights, had made her a constant target. Wally had been the one to start riding her about it, after a particularly long day of practice at the beginning of the season. If anyone ever got under her shirt, he'd yelled across the diamond, how would they know they'd gotten to second base?

She'd broken his nose that night when she went up to bat (hit a foul ball that went straight to his neanderthal face). But despite that or in spite of it, Butch had latched onto it like a mutt on a bone.

She took a deep breath, tried to ignore the blood pounding in her head as she focused on her catcher.

Tin-man, Butch had said with a smirk, shining the spotlight on two of Mae's worst defects. He got to insult her in double measure and with minimal effort. And Butch was nothing if not lazy.

But the worst part was that the name stuck. Mae minded, of course. But she'd become so used to the titles, the name calling. The presumptions made about her after years of the same treatment. If it wasn't Butch and Wally, it was Christine. Or Susie. Never Amata and surprisingly, never Freddie.

She shook her head at the signals. They'd expect a fastball. A curveball... maybe. Or was it time for that changeup...

Up until a few months ago, she would have believed that Paul was part of that never (never-again) group in her life, too. He'd stopped teasing her after thirteen, once he'd managed to make her cry (the only one who ever had). She wasn't sure if the tears or the way she'd tried so hard to hide them had done it, but after that incident, he hadn't said a word to her. Just remained on the sidelines while his two other friends tore into her.

And then her fifteenth birthday had come around.

Mae spat her gum to the side, heard the ref threaten that she'd be on cleanup duty. She adjusted her cap. Flexed her fingers on the stitches.

Breathed.

She'd hated her birthday since that fated thirteenth. Tried to keep them as mundane as any other day. But Amata would have none of if. She insisted on always getting her a present, a token to celebrate her best friend. Ice cream with her that night had been all Mae had wanted, she'd assured her dad. She'd even pretended she couldn't see the relief on his face.

Mae pitched, ball propelled from her feet, up her legs and torso and through her arm, kissed by the new calluses on her fingers. She barely heard the ref above the cheering crowds.

"Strike two!"

She finally wiped her face with a grimy sleeve, further dirtying it.

Freddie had shown up at the Diner that night, uninvited. Pepper must've mentioned something to her son after locking up the kitchen, after handing the two girls their ice cream. And with Freddie came his lab partner. Paul. They'd been studying and needed a snack break, Freddie had assured with a teasing grin.

Mae had looked at Amata in disbelief. She had been kidding. The same way she'd joked with Amata on her tenth birthday, asking for a date with Freddie when her best friend asked what she wanted.

'A kiss,' Mae had told Amata with a grin, ears pink even if it was in jest. 'From Paul Hannon.'

She crouched on the pitching mound, waited for the stands to quiet down.

Near impossible, she'd thought. No way it was happening. And besides, kidding about Freddie always hit too close to home. So she'd let her little lie float.

And somehow she'd gotten her wish. After sharing the ice cream with the boys, they had all headed back to their apartments. They had split up at the stairs, all meaning to go their separate ways. Mae and Paul had still not exchanged a word while Freddie joked and Amata kept the chatter going. But his eyes had been on her the whole time. Mae had caught him a couple of times. And he hadn't looked away.

When it was just down to them two, the silence had remained deafening. And tense. She felt it in her, coiled, hair almost standing on end from the energy in the air. When Paul had wished her a happy birthday, there was a tremor in his voice. And she had responded with a thank you, just as nervously, as he had leaned in and pressed a dry kiss to her mouth.

Her first kiss and it had been with a boy she hadn't even known she wanted one from.

But it had been good. And a few days after it happened, they were sent to retrieve boxes for Brotch in one of the supply closets. They had met in the middle again, a tentative kiss that she had initiated that time. And she would continue to do so in the following months. He would too. His soft lips and the way his eyes burned into her had become addicting, a way to express herself without words. Without anyone else knowing. Or interfering. They found each other in closets, in empty hallways. Any moment they could steal. But they kept it to the hours when they were out and about and only when they both knew no one would find them.

Mae pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket, stained and old and threadbare. Jonas had given it to her when she was eight and sneezed all over his lab coat. It was lucky. She used it to wipe her glasses and the sweat from her hands. Didn't trust just wiping them on her Vault issued league uniform. Wished, for a moment, that she was on a real baseball diamond with real dirt and grass and fresh air and a shining sun. Where she could clap the dirt from her hands, wouldn't worry so much about her slippery grip on the stitches.

It had become a thing between Paul and Mae. Something that after a few meetings had expanded to whispering. To hand holding. And exchanging reading material when she got it out of him that he read on occasion. When he had down time.

But if Butch, or Wally, or any of the others in their class had seen her that morning in the reactor level, they would've been completely justified with some of those names they called her.

Because Paul was breaking up with her and Mae couldn't find it in her to cry this time.

She couldn't wish for a new past time for their boring pre-scheduled afternoons if she proved them right.

She squinted toward home plate again, zeroed in with laser focus.

She had felt the ice settling. Sharp and cold and ready to freeze anything moving freely within her as Paul told her they couldn't see each other anymore. She almost laughed at how right they had been.

"You're really doing this?" But there was a heaviness in her chest, like a stone that was helping her sink. Helping her drown. It got heavier as the silence stretched between them, harder and harder to ignore.

"Yes, really." He had sighed, looking at anything but her. "I'm sorry."

"But why?" Why now? Why me? Why did you even kiss me if you were just going to do this? But those were questions she couldn't voice. Ever. How could she? It was hard enough keeping her reactions to a minimum. She had promised herself she would never give any of them any more of herself.

Paul had shrunk a little. But his voice had been firm, sure. "My mom found out."

"So what?"

"So, she controls my every move, Mae." He'd frowned, scuffed his shoes. "Look, I know you don't get it. You're the perfect kid, straight A's and all that, but my mom's not like your dad. She doesn't trust me as well."

Neither did her dad. But it had been pointless to argue. Mae was familiar with betrayal. And being dumped and then judged about something she could and couldn't control were reasons enough to see this through to the end.

"Whatever, Paulie." She hadn't been able to look at him either, felt her insides tightening, attempting to brace for the worst. "Just head on home to your mom, make sure she wipes your ass for you."

Paul sputtered and she had been as surprised as he with her response. Where had that come from?

But it was just what was needed. He had shaken his head and muttered another 'sorry' before leaving.

And Mae had studied her feet until she was sure no tears would escape. Then she had swallowed the huge lump in her throat, taken a deep breath and headed back to class.

She took to the empty mound every time she thought of Paul in the following months. She worked on her pitches, her angles and follow through. And sometimes she pitched until her arm felt like it would fall off. Until Paul's eyes and kisses were a dull ache in her heart, another scab.

She found a grim satisfaction in it. So much so that she had flushed her pills down the toilet more than once.

And now here in the finals, feet planted on the rubber under the house lights that blinded her. The crowd was silent, expectant. Waiting.

She hid in her mitt, kept both hands close to her chest. Ran through all the names they had called her. She was more than an ice-queen, more than a robot, more than a tin-man.

She adjusted her grip within the mitt, got into her stretch, lifted that leg and-

Thwack!

"Strike Three!"

She added MVP to the list of names they called her.