A/N: Today's word is "shame" from TheAUWalker. Features Stein and Marie.
She stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder as she all but shouted into his ear. He ignored the interruption, his eyes scanning lines of data as he continued to work.
"Franken Stein, have you no shame at all?"
He finally turned to face her, his expression neutral. "I just fail to see what the problem is, Marie."
She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed; this caused a smirk to pull at Stein's lips and she responded violently. His head snapped to the side as her hand collided with his cheek, her fingertips just narrowly missing the screw that was protruding from the side of his skull.
"The problem is that we haven't been on a mission in three months and I have a brand new scar!"
"I assure you that I-"
Her hand collided with his face again, effectively silencing the scientist. "Don't give me that crap. I know what you did to Spirit while he was living here. Why can't you just admit what you've done?"
His greens eyes met her singular gold one as he brought his head back to face her. "Would that honestly make matters better, if you knew without a doubt that you couldn't trust me?"
He watched as some of the anger slipped out of her features and she took a step back. He decided to push the initiative. "You want to hear that I cut you open, don't you? You want it to come from my own mouth that I cut you open, and that I was aware of my actions. You want to believe that it wasn't me slipping into madness so strongly that even the presence of your wavelength wasn't enough to keep you safe. You want to maintain the illusion that you're safe here." Stein rose from his chair in a smooth action, stepping close to the shocked woman. "And what if it wasn't? Would you be as happy to hear that?"
His face loomed close to hers, his hand catching her chin and forcing her to look up at him. "You're right, Marie. I have no shame. I did cut into you, but it wasn't because I fell into madness like you were hoping. It was because I wanted to, just like with Spirit. It'll happen again if you insist on staying here. You're such an interesting specimen."
His body was flush with hers before she realized it, and she flinched a bit as she felt something cold and hard press against the exposed skin of her arm.
"Well, Marie?"
She met his gaze boldly. "You don't understand, Franken. I'm not mad that you experimented on me. I'm mad that you didn't ask permission."
A sadistic grin crossed his face for a moment. "And if I were to ask?"
"You never know what the answer might be."
Stein just chuckled as he stepped away from her, his hand reaching up to twist the screw even as he puzzled over the experiments he had always wanted to perform on Marie Mjolnir.