Chapter Text
There were certain perks to being the TA and protégé of a very respected professor. For one, the coffee in the office was way better than what they had in the students’ lounge. Secondly, the equipment was top-notch, the office and lab had the best tech and the latest versions of the software. Thirdly, while he was eccentric and had high demands, professor Merlin – real name known only to his parents and supposedly some officials – didn’t give a flying fuck about what school you went to, as long as you showed promise and got shit done. And Eggsy did get shit done, indeed, because he’d grown up on the knowledge that if you want something, you have to work for it.
He barely scraped together the grades to get into Wentham, because, well, real life had got in the way during A levels, hadn’t it (sometimes he’s amazed that he even did A levels), but his entrance exam was a breeze, so he was grudgingly accepted.
His interviewer had sneered at him and made it clear that he expected Eggsy to drop out within the first three months, but Eggsy’s nothing but a fighter, so there they were, five years later, a year into Eggsy’s master’s studies in computational physics. His bachelor’s thesis had earned him a first, fuck you very much, Chester King.
He first encountered Merlin during his second year, when he finally took the fabled ‘’Programming in physics’’ course that Merlin taught. Upperclassmen spoke of the professor and his courses in hushed, reverent tones, before declaring that no one had ever got anything higher than a C in any of his classes. Eggsy, being the stubborn little shit (his roommate’s words, not his) he was, had decided then that he’s going to get a fucking A. During his quest for that ‘’at least 92% in all assignments’’, he’d accidentally found three bugs in Merlin’s codes and fixed them, and helped a doctorate student write a program to speed up his work.
So he was invited into Merlin’s office, so that the man himself could tell him that he ‘’got an A, congratulations, Unwin’’. Eggsy had thanked him and Merlin had offered him a job. It went something like this:
‘’I need an assistant who actually knows what he’s doing.’’
‘’Okay…’’
‘’So?’’
‘’So... what?’’
‘’Are you gonna work for me or not, lad?’’
Like hell he was going to let an opportunity like this go. And that’s how Eggsy ended up working for the scariest, most respected professor in the faculty.
--
That’s also how he found himself in the midst of all manner of vaguely scientific fuckery.
When he was younger, Eggsy had always thought that academics and scientists were serious people, with serious problems to discuss and research. Well, nope.
--
‘’Unwin!’’ came the call from somewhere in the corridor. Eggsy abandoned the code he’d been working on and poked his head out of the lab’s door to see Merlin. ‘’Yeah?’’
‘’Can you pick a lock?’’
Eggsy raised his brows. ‘’Pick a lock?’’
‘’Yes, pick a fucking lock.’’
‘’Sure,’’ Eggsy shrugged. He could pick a lock. Also pickpocket.
‘’Great, come along,’’ said Merlin, already halfway out the door and Eggsy scrambled to catch up with him.
‘’You see, this is why I hire former delinquents, not arse kissers,’’ commented Merlin leaning against the wall while Eggsy picked open the door to his office, ‘’you’re actually useful for something.’’
--
‘’I want to shoot something,’’ declared Roxy stepping into the lab.
‘’Shoot me,’’ offered Eggsy with a groan. ‘’This fucking piece of shit fucking calculation will not fucking work properly.’’ After a moment he added, ‘’Fuck!’’ for good measure.
Roxy flopped down on one of the chairs and spun around. ‘’Well the copy machine has stopped working. Again. It’s not like I have a grant proposal to submit or anything.’’
‘’For the Hart project?’’
‘’The one and the same. We need that sweet science money.’’
‘’Ask Merlin to print it for you, he has one of those fancy as fuck machines in his office,’’ said Eggsy with a shrug.
Roxy looked at him incredulously. ‘’Ask Merlin? To print five sheets for a grant proposal? I think he’ll shoot me for bothering him with something so small.’’
‘’Nah, no he won’t. I’ve asked him to print all sorts of shit and he’s alright with it. Besides, he likes you, Rox. He’s not gonna shoot you. Says you keep me in check.’’
‘’Really?’’
‘’Yeah, but really I just think he’s happy to see a woman in the midst of this giant sausage fest that it physics.’’
‘’Fuck off, Unwin,’’ said Roxy and threw a pen at Eggsy.
‘’Hey, I’m just being honest. It’s not like I give a fuck, now do I?’’
Roxy chuckled. ‘’Probably not, you fucking twink.’’
‘’Oi! Just ‘cause I like them older don’t make me a twink,’’ protested Eggsy only to have Roxy flip the bird at him.
‘’Anyway, what do you say, we’ll ask Merlin for your print job and also see if we can destroy the copy machine?’’
‘’What?!’’
--
Eggsy didn’t bother knocking on Merlin’s door ad stepped right in. ‘’Merlin, we need a favour and an answer,’’ he announced, before stopping dead on his tracks. Sitting in Merlin’s office, drinking coffee from the ‘’#1 lab supervisor’’ mug Eggsy had gotten Merlin last Christmas, was the most handsome man Eggsy had ever seen.
‘’Ah, Unwin, I was just telling Harry all about you,’’ said Merlin, without bothering to get up. ‘’Harry, this is Eggsy Unwin, my assistant, the most brilliant little shit in this faculty at least, and Eggsy, this is Harry Hart, our co-author from Cambridge.’’
Harry Hart smiled and held out a hand for Eggsy to shake. ‘’I read the last publication. Merlin tells me you were in charge of analysis. Good work.’’
Eggsy tried to wrap his brain around the fact that Harry Hart, the bloke they’d be working with and who understood more about fluid dynamics than probably any other living person, was fucking hot as shit. He shook Hart’s hand and mumbled a ‘’pleasure to meet you’’ before he embarrassed himself.
‘’So what did you need, Unwin?’’
Okay, being a little shit to Merlin – that Eggsy could do. He threw Merlin a flash drive, which the man caught mid-air. ‘’Rox needs the grant proposal printed, and also we were wondering if we could destroy the copy machine on the third floor.’’
‘’Why on Earth would you do that?’’
‘’It doesn’t work and also I haven’t had the chance to annoy financing with my presence lately. Then I could go and ask them for a working printer.’’
The financing department was entirely made up of annoying stuck up pricks and Eggsy loved to annoy them every once in a while, knowing that they couldn’t refuse Merlin’s lab. He recognised that the finances weren’t endless and many departments were vying for funding, but the fact remained that the physics department had the largest budget, some of which could be used for printers.
‘’Yeah, sure, go ahead,’’ said Merlin with a shrug, handing Eggsy the printed sheets and his flash drive. ‘’Now shoo, grownups need to talk.’’
Eggsy gave Merlin a mock salute. ‘’Sir, yes, sir.’’ He mustered up his courage and threw a wink at Hart before exiting Merlin’s office.
--
‘’Unwin, Roxy, it’s grading time,’’ announced Merlin, carrying a stack of what only could be exams.
Both groaned at the prospect of reading through 50 tests, most of which would be failures. ‘’You know the drill, if the answer is correct they get a point, if not, they don’t, no partials and you may award bullshit points. Now get to work.’’
‘’What about you?’’ asked Eggsy, accepting the stack of papers. Merlin usually graded at least some of the exams.
‘’There’s free food at the chemistry labs, Percy’s birthday,’’ explained Merlin and left his assistants to it.
‘’Bring back cake, yeah?’’ yelled Eggsy to his retreating back.
Fucking grading. Eggsy loved this assistant business, but grading. Fucking grading, the bane of his existence. Most students had no idea what they wrote. Some had handwritings worse than Eggsy’s, so he was pretty sure they didn’t want Merlin to know what they’d written. Seriously, it was like trying to read fucking Chinese.
But then, occasionally, there were decent answers, and it was clear that the student at least had an inkling about the topic.
And then there were the bullshit points. Merlin (or Eggsy or Roxy) awarded them for either intentionally or unintentionally hilarious answers. If the answer was correct and the student had managed to answer in a humorous way, they’d get an actual point as well as bullshit points. If the answer was so wrong that it made the grader laugh until they cried, they were awarded bullshit points by the dozen.
‘’They don’t want their exams back, do they?’’ asked Eggsy after three hours. ‘’Because I want to light this one on fire.’’
‘’If it’s mostly correct, but there’s a small mistake, do I award the point or not?’’ mused Roxy out loud. ‘’Oh fuck it, no point for you, asshole.’’
‘’Good to see you employing the Merlin approach.’’
‘’Do you know what? I like your approach. Got a lighter?’’
They didn’t light the exams on fire. Well, not all of them. But they entered the grades into the system first.
--
Merlin might’ve been a pretty decent employer, but he still answered emails like a professor.
From: [email protected]
Subject: thesis – kind of important probably
22/03/16
Hey, Merlin,
I got the preliminary results on my calculations. The model sort of fits, but there’s a kink in it, can’t figure it out for the life of me. Maybe you can go over it, see what’s wrong?
I’ve also included an early draft for introduction and background.
Also, I’ll be out of the lab next week, mon-wed (28/03 – 30/03). I told you about three weeks ago and I have it in writing that you acknowledged it. You can’t tell me that you didn’t know.
Eggsy
Attachments: first_results_model.m, draft_intro.docx
*
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: thesis – kind of important probably
22/03/16
ok
*
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: re: thesis – kind of important probably
27/03/2016
Hey,
Have you had a moment to check the model and calculations? I’ll be out of lab tomorrow through Wednesday. Let me know if you want to see me later in the week.
Eggsy
--
From: [email protected]
Subject: re: re: re: thesis – kind of important probably
29/03/16
Had a look, faulty code, easy enough to fix. Will be in office till thurs afternoon, see me sometime before that, preferably tomorrow.
--
Unwin: told u I’d be out of lab till tmrw. read ur mail i s2g
Merlin: Should’ve told me in person.
Unwin: should’ve gone to engineering
Merlin: Your place is in comphys. Besides, engineering has shittier coffee and no vending machine.
Merlin: And they still run MATLAB 7.9.
Unwin: relax, not going anywhere. will stop by on thurs am.
--
On Thursday morning, Eggsy made his way to Merlin’s office. ‘’Good morning, I brought Starbucks.’’
‘’Cheers, Unwin. You’re proving yourself to be the best master’s student I’ve ever had,’’ said Merlin accepting his caramel latte. He might’ve looked all serious, the kind of person who drinks day-old black coffee, but in reality, Merlin was fussy as shit about his coffee and tea alike. Eggsy learned early on that he could keep Merlin on his side by bringing him Starbucks.
‘’Really?’’
‘’Maybe.’’
Eggsy eyed Merlin sceptically. ‘’Well, if I told you how much I value you, I’d lose my reputation as a cold-hearted son of a bitch and then everyone would want me as their advisor. So let’s pretend I only tolerate you because you bring coffee and don’t need me to walk you through every step in MATLAB.’’
‘’Speaking of, what’s with the code? I triple-checked it.’’
‘’Well, you see, you should’ve checked it four times. See, here,’’ Merlin swivelled his monitor towards Eggsy. ‘’That line here, fix that and your data will fit the model like a glove.’’
‘’Huh.’’ Eggsy eyed the offending line of code that was fucking up his data. Fair enough, change that.
‘’Did you happen to have a look at the intro draft, as well?’’
Merlin gave a noncommittal shrug. ‘’I looked through it.’’
‘’And?’’
‘’What? You don’t want pointers, do you?’’
Eggsy narrowed his eyes. ‘’You didn’t read it, did you?’’
‘’Of course I didn’t,’’ snorted Merlin. ‘’I looked through it and nothing seemed glaringly amiss. There’s a difference and you should learn it, Unwin. Makes your life a lot easier.’’
Eggsy stared at him. So that’s what ‘’looked through’’ meant.
‘’Don’t look at me like that. Do you think I read every attachment I get sent? I don’t have the time. So I look through things. Awfully clever little trick.’’
‘’A-ha.’’ In retrospect, Eggsy thought, he really should’ve known. Merlin was a busy man and he was much more interested in Eggsy’s involvement in other research projects than his thesis.
‘’Since I have you here, I might as well say this now. I went out to dinner last night with Hart, and he was very interested in you. If he tries to lure you to Cambridge, tell him to fuck off.’’
Harry Hart had been asking about him? What in the shitting fuck? But Merlin wasn’t finished yet.
‘’If he tries to lure you to dinner, you’re free to do whatever you want, as long as I don’t have to hear about it.’’
Eggsy blinked. What? Harry Hart wanted to ask him out? What the shit?
‘’Don’t look so taken aback. Harry’s been talking about you ever since you barged into my office during our meeting. God knows what he sees in your mug, but whatever. As long as you don’t fuck up this project, you’re free to do what you want. We need this publication to get more funding and we need more funding to do science that’s fun.’’
‘’Okay. No fucking with the project.’’
‘’I’m bringing this up because we’ve got people coming next week, kind of an open-doors thing, and we need you to give a tour, introduce the lab, what we do. You’re young and supposedly attractive; they’ll love to hear you talk. Hart will be there as well. So if he tries to talk to you, try not to short-circuit.’’
‘’Will try. No promises.’’ Holy shit, was Hart really interested in him? Eggsy had seen the man only a handful of times, but honestly, he was hot and he’d read enough of the man’s work to know that he was the real deal.
‘’Now get the fuck out of my office.’’
--
‘’So this is the lab,’’ said Eggsy to the group of 15 or so people obediently following him, amongst them Harry. ‘’We mainly do computational mechanics and fluid mechanics, but some of our researchers have branched out to other fields. We have surprisingly decent funding, which means that we run MATLAB 8.6, as opposed to 7.9 like our brothers in engineering down the hall.
Our supervisor is the computational physics superstar Merlin – who, like a true superstar, goes by only one name –‘’ that earned a chuckle from the crowd, including Harry, which Eggsy took as a personal win, ‘’and we usually have at least five projects in the works at any given time. Currently, we are starting a new very exciting research project in fluid mechanics with Cambridge researcher Harry Hart.’’ He pointed towards Harry, who acknowledged the attention with a little nod.
Eggsy answered a couple of questions, before the group went on to explore the materials science lab. Harry stayed behind and Eggsy tried to do as Merlin said – not to short-circuit.
‘’I think you sold it, Eggsy,’’ commented Harry.
‘’I hope so, the more students we get, the better.’’
Harry chuckled.
‘’Guess that’s not a problem in Cambridge? People come flocking and you turn most of them down.’’
‘’So do you, I hear the Wentham enrolment committee is very strict.’’
Eggsy snorted. ‘’A bunch of pricks with sticks shoved strictly up their arses,’’ he grumbled, before realising what he’d said. ‘’Fuck. I probably shouldn’t have said that.’’
Harry laughed and shook his head. ‘’Maybe not, but at least you’re honest. A nice change from the polite dishonesty, really.’’
Eggsy shrugged in a what-can-you-do manner. ‘’I try,’’ he said and elicited another laugh from Harry. His eyes crinkled up attractively behind his glasses and honestly with his extremely well-fitting suit, he didn’t look like a researcher. Most people wore comfortable clothes to labs, jumpers and jeans or maybe even joggers, although some of the post-docs were known to rock up in pyjamas, but not Harry Hart. Eggsy got the distinct feeling that Harry was the kind of person to go all out on everything.
‘’Eggsy, I’ve been meaning to ask you,’’ Harry said suddenly. ‘’How would you feel about dinner? Drinks, if you prefer. To… Get to know each other.’’
‘’As fellow researchers or more intimately?’’ Fucking shit, Unwin, thought Eggsy right after the words had left his mouth, intimately? He really needed to stop blurting out anything and everything that came to mind around Harry.
‘’I was hoping for the latter,’’ Harry admitted and looked at Eggsy expectantly. It occurred to Eggsy that Harry might feel nervous as well.
‘’I’d like that.’’
‘’Brilliant, I’ll be looking forward to it. I’m afraid I’ve exhausted Merlin with endless questions about you.’’
‘’He might have mentioned that.’’
Harry pursed his lips. ‘’Did he? That meddling bastard.’’
‘’He also told me that if you tried to lure me to Cambridge, I should tell you to fuck off.’’
‘’Don’t worry, you’d be wasted in Cambridge. Here, they let you do actual work.’’
‘’So your master’s students wash floors, is that it?’’
‘’God no, they’re all too important for that. I mostly make them run simulations.’’
‘’You mean you let them stare at a screen for two hours until the simulations run themselves?’’
Harry made a vague gesture in response.
--
‘’I’ll see you on Friday, yes?’’ asked Harry, before kissing Eggsy again, who melted happily into the kiss. It had been a month since their date and everything was going swimmingly. Even now, Eggsy was thoroughly enjoying Harry’s embrace, until Merlin poked his head out of the window of his office and yelled, ‘’Let my assistant go, Hart, I need him to do actual work!’’ before shutting the window, leaving Harry and Eggsy laughing in the parking lot.
‘’I guess I’ll better go,’’ said Eggsy and pulled away. Harry had to go back to Cambridge for the week, while Eggsy stayed in London.
Harry let him go. ‘’Alright, go please His Highness.’’ Eggsy planted one last kiss onto Harry’s lips. ‘’Friday, yeah?’’
He watched Harry drive away before making his way to the lab. ‘’Morning, Rox!’’
‘’You’re not supposed to have a relationship, Eggsy. You’re a physicist. We don’t have sex. The only thing deserving of our caresses is the lab computer. What’s wrong with you?’’
Eggsy set his stuff down and turned to Roxy. ‘’Is this because you didn’t get laid and I did?’’
Roxy’s only response was sullen silence.
‘’Come on, statistically speaking, since you’re the only girl in here, your odds are good.’’
Roxy sighed. ‘’The odds maybe good, but the goods are odd. You’re the only halfway decent man in this lab, and you’re fucking gay, Unwin. And now you’re a fucking gay with an active sex life. We were supposed to be in this together, Eggsy.’’
Eggsy went over to Roxy’s desk and started to massage her shoulders as a peace offering. ‘’Can I redeem myself?’’
‘’Yeah, take the TA hours for this week. I can’t fucking stand second year students. Were we just as clueless as them?’’
‘’Alright, I’ll take some of the TA hours. The homework deadline is near, isn’t it?’’
‘’Yeah,’’ hummed Roxy. ‘’Also I printed out a large sign that says ‘’it’s in the syllabus’’, caps lock and all, so you don’t have to repeat it in answer to every dumb question about formatting.’’
Eggsy chuckled. ‘’Good thinking there, Rox.’’