Chapter Text
Undyne arrived at Alphys’s late in the evening. She was exhausted from the long day at work and the dinner she had had with a couple of her sergeants. Her mind was still buzzing with all the ideas they had brought up on how to combat the growing drug ring in the City, and how pretty much all of them had sucked. There was too much to focus on.
Even though Undyne and Alphys were engaged, they hadn’t completely moved in with each other yet. Alphys typically stayed at Undyne’s, and her place was big enough to house both of them, but Alphys still needed her own personal lab outside of the one she worked at, and so some nights she would stay there, working on whatever she needed to get done.
Undyne knew that right now she was working on some big paper. Something to do with new medical technology, Undyne didn’t fully understand it when it was explained to her. All she knew was that it worked and helped people and that her fiancée was incredible. Alphys needed the funding for it to be approved, but she couldn’t get that until she published her findings on the basis of the tech that made it all work. Or something like that. She was always writing and publishing big papers, so Undyne didn’t think much about it. Alphys would do well like she always did, despite the engineer’s anxiety.
Undyne loved her and knew she worked incredibly hard. It was one of the reasons why she had been so upset that Alphys had been demoted when Dr. Gaster showed back up out of nowhere. Alphys said she had never wanted the position in the first place, but Undyne still saw it as an injustice. Alphys had thrived in the role as Royal Scientist, and even though she had been demoted, she was still doing some of the work she had been doing then. She deserved to be recognized when she was still doing things that apparently only the Royal Scientist could do.
It was quiet in the lab when Undyne entered and threw down her things. The TV was running, but it was on low volume, likely being used as background noise. She recognized the anime, and knew that it was just a rewatch, so Alphys didn’t need to pay attention to it.
“Babe, are you still working?” Undyne called out, filling a glass with water from the faucet. It was pretty late. She knew Alphys could work much later in the night, but she had been trying to work with her on setting boundaries and fixing her sleep schedule.
“Uh, actually, I’m getting my work checked over right, um, now,” Alphys called out. “I’ll be done for the night after that I, I think.”
Undyne made an affirmative noise and headed into the small living-room-esque area of Alphys’s lab. She froze when she saw Alphys sitting nervously next to a tall, dark figure silently reading over a stack of pages with a red pen between his fingers.
Undyne recognized him right away. Dr. Gaster was hard to forget, even though he had apparently been erased temporarily from everyone’s memory once. She had seen him in the hallways of the lab, or with the King during ceremonies. He stood tall, silent and stiff. Even when working in the lab, he wore black instead of the traditional white lab coat, and at any given point, he had a couple of scientists trembling at his feet. Undyne knew that often, Alphys was one of them.
He had a set of headphones on, likely to block out the noise of the TV. Undyne couldn’t see the page he was working on, but the ones in Alphys’s hands were heavily marked in red.
“This is my fifth draft,” Alphys chuckled a little in exasperation. Her feet were swinging with anxious energy.
“Dr. Gaster,” Undyne said in greeting, but the Royal Scientist didn’t look up until she sat down in the chair to the side of the couch. He gave Undyne a nod and made a hand signal she couldn’t decipher before returning to the butchering of Alphys’s work.
“How was dinner?” Alphys asked.
“Fine,” Undyne said stiffly, not taking her eyes off Dr. Gaster for a long while. “We’ve mostly talked about work, but I was able to get Lionel to loosen up a little after a while.”
“That’s…that’s good,” Alphys smiled, fidgeting with her ring. Undyne’s heart did a couple of backflips. “Nothing crazy happening at work?”
“Nothing crazier than any other day,” Undyne said. Dr. Gaster handed Alphys another marked up page. Undyne watched her eyes travel across it and her shoulders dropped a little when she added it to the pile.
They sat in relative silence as Dr. Gaster finished the final page. The tension was thick, not just because Undyne definitively didn’t like the scientist, but also due to the instinctual distant mask that came on whenever she was with her partner around strangers. Not everyone was happy about their partnership, and it was often impossible to tell where a person stood until it was too late. Undyne wasn’t eager to test the waters with Dr. Gaster, especially right now. Both of them had been avoiding wearing their engagement rings at work.
He turned the page over on its back, and filled it with comments before handing it to Alphys and removing his headphones. He signed something to Alphys, and she nodded. He stood up, signing a couple more things that Alphys listened to intently. She straightened the pages and stood up to walk him out. He turned to Undyne. “It was good to see you, Captain Undyne,” he whispered.
Undyne tried to act relaxed. “Always a pleasure, Dr. Gaster.”
He nodded again and followed Alphys out.
When the door closed, Undyne immediately groaned, letting the mask drop. “I don’t know if I hate anyone more.” She said, bending her head back over the chair to look at Alphys. “Well, I can think of a few, but not many,” she said after a moment.
“What? Who?” Alphys quickly returned to her spot on the couch after setting down her paper.
“Dr. Gaster,” Undyne said, motioning to the door.
“Why on earth would you hate him?” Alphys exclaimed.
“He’s an asshole.” Undyne said. “He acts all intimidating like he owns the world, and steps over anyone in his way. He had the nerve to take a position you rightfully earned, and then comes in here and marks up your entire paper like you're not the best scientist in your field. You’ve done more for the underground than he ever has.”
Alphys shook her head. “He built the CORE. The entire thing, in just five years. He’s the only reason we have power. And I’m not the best scientist in my field, he is. That’s why I asked him to look over my paper. And yes, he can be a harsh editor, but—”
“He needs to get his ego in check.” Undyne said. “Just because he’s the Royal Scientist doesn’t mean he can intimidate everyone and pretend he’s better than everyone else—even if he is. He thinks he’s so above everyone that he doesn’t even talk to people.”
Alphys laughed out loud. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a wrong claim about Dr. Gaster. I know you don’t believe me, but he’s nothing like how you describe him.”
“Others are scared of him, too,” she said. “A lot of your coworkers have said they are.”
“Because he’s their boss. Everyone is scared of their boss. You get nervous whenever you have to report to Asgore, and you love him.”
“Well Asgore doesn't loom over people silently dressed in all black.”
Alphys shook her head. “I think if you properly met him, you’d see he’s completely different. Before the accident, he was my teacher and we’ve always been friends. He’s never done anything to upset me.”
“And all the edits on your paper?”
Alphys waved it off. “A lot of them were comments, not edits. And if my work is going to be at the level it needs to be, it needs all these edits. You should’ve seen what he did to my 2nd draft. I think you would have killed him right then and there.”
“I don’t like him,” Undyne said. “He just gives me a bad feeling.”
“I think you're taking the whole position thing a little too seriously. Neither of us really care about that title,” Alphys beckoned Undyne to the couch and she obliged. “I promise if something felt wrong or if he was awful, I’d tell you.”
Undyne pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I just want to make sure you’re happy.”
Alphys took her hand and smiled up at her. “I assure you, I couldn’t be any happier.”