Chapter Text
Stone had put off his last science gen-ed until his senior year. Look, he knows that it was a bad idea, has known it since his freshman year when he knocked out nearly every other one. He just really, really isn’t good with science, and really, really didn’t want to deal with it until the last possible moment. Well, not the very last- if he fails this semester (which, even a month into the year, he feels like he honestly might), he can always retake it in spring semester. Sure, he would rather die, but he could.
There’s nothing wrong with the class itself either. The professor is a little dry, but his office hours are at least vaguely helpful when they don’t clash with his practice schedule. The TA is a hardass, but he grades quizzes and lab reports in superhuman time, even if he's harsh about the tiniest details. His lab partner is a sophomore named Hayley, and they’re an absolute treasure, but they’re an actual chemistry major who knows what they’re doing. They’re nice and enthusiastic and all, but they have a habit of letting him get by with just recording things and watching thermometers and running through all the math in their write-ups instead of having to learn the actual theory behind the labs.
Four weeks into class, his lab grade is fine, but he’s really hurting from the quizzes and the first exam, and he needs to keep his GPA up to stay off the bench during rugby season, and also, y’know, graduate . So he reaches out, reluctantly, and emails the course TA; some holier-than-thou asshole named Robotnik. He’s apparently working on his second doctorate in the school’s grad program and is an absolute tyrant in the lab. He’ll flip his shit on people for not having their goggles on the second they walk through the door or for putting chemicals back into reagent bottles after mismeasuring. Allegedly, one time in the PM lab period he grabbed a guy’s whole face and made him spit his gum into his hand in the middle of titrating without even taking off his gloves, so it’s not even like he’s that worried about lab safety. Once he took points off and left a quite frankly scathing note on one of their lab write-ups because Hayley had forgotten to use a straight edge on one fucking graph. That last one really made his long dormant big brother instincts kick in, and Stone went from thinking Robotnik was a bit of a pretentious weirdo to genuinely disliking him. Even if he was kind of hot, in that mad science, Egon Spengler kind of way. Regardless, he emails him and asks if he’s available to tutor Stone, here are the hours he’s free, sorry they’re kind of limited because of his job and he’s in fall sports but he can absolutely talk to his coach if needed-
But it turns out that Robotnik keeps kind of weird hours too, apparently, because he’s able to meet for an hour at 6AM before Stone goes to weight training on Tuesday mornings, and an hour at 7PM before his Friday night practices. They plan to meet in the computer room off of the lab, where there are a few tables and chairs set up in the middle of the linoleum floor. Robotnik emails one more time with his cell number and tells him to bring whatever he needs to work on.
Stone shows up bright eyed and bushy tailed to their first meeting at six on the dot with two lattes he picked up on his way to campus. He knows that it’s literally Robotnik’s job to do this, and he still really doesn’t like him, but he still has the urge to make a good impression, y’know? Also, he’s maybe just a little scared to be alone with him for a whole hour, because he’s reduced students to tears in far less time. On a few notable occasions without even speaking. Robotnik is already in the room, honestly looking kind of like shit. Dark stubble is growing in across his jaw and his stupid hipster moustache drooping at the points. He’s idly typing away on a laptop that definitely looks homemade, or at least seriously souped up, and doesn’t seem to notice Stone until he speaks.
“Sorry, is this an early morning for you? I’m used to it because we have weights early on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I’m usually already up with the sun,” he rambles. Robotnik stares blankly at him for a second before seeming to snap back to himself.
“I haven’t slept yet. Is that coffee?” Stone hands one of the paper cups to him and Robotnik doesn’t even thank him, which, rude , but he does take a long drink even though it’s still scalding. He looks microscopically less like he’s about to disintegrate on the spot afterwards, which Stone appreciates. He sits across from his TA.
“I know you said to bring what I wanted to work on but to be honest I’m, uh. So lost that I’m not sure what questions I even need to be asking. The last chem class I took was two years ago and I’m convinced the only reason I got a B was a freak Scantron accident during the final exam.” He’s worried Robotnik is going to immediately tear into him or insult him, but he just sighs and rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“Alright. Why don’t you just tell me what you do know, and we’ll go from there.”
They spend most of that first hour finding the areas where Stone’s knowledge is lacking. He’s missing some fundamentals, which explains why he’s having so much trouble learning the concepts that are supposed to build off of them. Robotnik is surprisingly easy going with him- he’s not nice , per say, but he doesn’t make any unnecessary digs or sneer at him like he does the students in lab who come in asking about the syllabus or looking for extensions. By the end, as Stone hefts his gym bag over his shoulder, he’s actually looking forward to his lab the next day. Robotnik stands too, his spine making an unholy crunching sound when he stretches that Stone is convinced can’t be healthy.
“You’re partnered with Hayley Tanner, right?”
Stone nods, “Yeah.”
“During lab tomorrow ask if she can explain what she’s doing-”
Stone frowns and every part of his mind’s Asshole Alert that has calmed down in the past hour flares right back up. “It’s they.”
“What?”
“Hayley uses they/them pronouns.”
Robotnik blinks. “I’m sorry. I- wasn’t aware of that. Ask if they can explain what’s going on as they do it. You seem to be a practical learner. Understanding what’s happening as it’s in action will help you.” Robotnik turns and strides out of the room without saying goodbye. Stone can only think that that was the only time he’s heard the man apologize for anything in the four weeks he’s known him.
-----
Hayley is, of course, ecstatic to rattle on and on about how they’re distilling their petroleum, and the products, and how much is foreshot and the curve of the purity of the product as the temperature rises. Stone is happy to listen to them excitedly describe how the different substances boil at different temperatures because of their intermolecular forces and those were caused by the charge of electrons and so on and so forth, all while keeping an eye on their collection vials and washing beakers with isopropyl alcohol in between recording their data. A few hours in he actually thinks he starts to really get some of it. He catches Robotnik’s eye as he stalks around making sure everything is up to par at each lab station and the TA nods approvingly at him. Stone can’t help but feel a little flutter of pride at it.
Friday night rolls around and Stone, dressed for practice with a hoodie thrown on top, walks from his apartment near campus to his meeting with Robotnik. He had felt really good during the lab, but when he had tried to figure out how everything fit in with the textbook chapter he just could not make sense of it.
Amazingly, Robotnik manages to look just as exhausted on a Friday night as he did on Tuesday morning. Stone is beginning to suspect that the only times he looks remotely human are when he’s teaching. He’s sitting in the same chair, grading quizzes from another course, but he shoves them into his laptop bag when Stone slumps into the seat across from him.
Stone goes on about how he just cannot connect the explanations in the book to actual physical, like, geometry, and the language is so confusing it's a whole other thing he has to get around. He’s a math major, he’s fine when there are actual concrete numbers , not that esoteric bullshit. Robotnik snorts. When Stone stops and looks at him he’s leaning back with the corner of his mouth turned up. He thinks Robotnik might be laughing at him, but then-
“That’s because academic literature is written by a bunch of magniloquent old coots who couldn’t get their point across if they were held at gunpoint. Here,” he pulls Stone’s textbook towards him and flips to the chapter they’re on. “Why don’t we go through it in something closer to comprehensible English.”
So Stone sits quietly and takes notes for the full hour, except it’s somehow so much more productive than his lecture ever is, even though Robotnik ends up on a new tangent that’s only tenuously related to the subject at hand every few pages.
When Stone’s alarm goes off to let him know he needs to be on the field soon, he has something like ten pages of paraphrased notes and illustrations that actually make sense to him. Robotnik flips through them, adding his own notes and tweaking angles and orbital shapes here and there, as Stone pulls his hoodie back on and impatiently grabs his bag.
“These are good.” Robotnik hands the notebook back to Stone, who stuffs it into his bag, already moving towards the door. “Take another look at the diagrams in 4.6, but this is a solid foundation for the week’s material.”
“Thank you so much,” Stone beams. “That was actually really helpful, thanks for putting it in, uh, ‘comprehensible English’ for me.”
He jogs out to rush to the field but he just sees Robotnik nod and- if his eyes aren’t playing tricks on him- smile again, pulling his grading out of his bag.